


Flemish Border, 17-19 June 1637

by Anima Nightmate (faithhope)



Series: All For One At War [16]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: (by my standards anyway), (sorry), 69 (Sex Position), Aftermath, Anal Fingering, Anger, Anger Management, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Awkward Conversations, Awkwardness, Banter, Bathing/Washing, Biting, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Coming Untouched, Comrades in Arms, Deepthroating, Denial, Dialect, Dominance, Dry Orgasm, Enthusiastic Consent, Established Relationship, Explicit Consent, Fellatio, Fishing, Fluff, Folk Music, Franco-Spanish War, Friendship, Frottage, Hair-pulling, Haircuts, Hiking, Humour, Hunting, Imagination, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Innuendo, Kink Exploration, Kissing, Latin, Lazy Mornings, Light Angst, Light Dom/sub, Linguistics, Lube, M/M, Male Solo, Massage, Masturbation, Memories, Metaphors, Mistakes, Morning After, Morning Sex, Multiple Orgasms, Music, Negotiations, Nudity, Oral Sex, POV Multiple, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Pillow Talk, Platonic Massage, Poetry, Porthos is a good mate, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rating for later chapters, Rimming, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Rope Bondage, Safe Sane and Consensual, Sarcasm, Sass, Shaving, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Surprises, Swearing, Teasing, Tenderness, Trust, Verbal Dominance, Voice Kink, Walks In The Woods, War, Wartime, anecdotes, bad memories, is it voyeurism if you're overhearing it?, keeping track of weapons is such a Musketeer writer's problem, leave of absence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-09-25 11:57:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17120915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithhope/pseuds/Anima%20Nightmate
Summary: “How much further?”“Not far.”“Be more precise, please, Porthos.”He grins over his shoulder at him, a wide beam though the edges are tired, he sees. “A mile, tops.”Athos merely raises the middle of his brow high at this intelligence, makes a pointed heft of his burden.Porthos, uncowed, merely says: “It’ll be worth it. Trust me.”*Another instalment in the long series of pieces based around the black box that is the Musketeers during the Spanish War.





	1. On Foot

“How much further?”

“Not far.”

“Be more precise, please, Porthos.”

He grins over his shoulder at him, a wide beam though the edges are tired, he sees. “A mile, tops.”

Athos merely raises the middle of his brow high at this intelligence, makes a pointed heft of his burden.

Porthos, uncowed, merely says: “It’ll be worth it. Trust me.”

“Maybe I should ask you to carry my pack while we’re at it.”

“Of course, Captain. If you’re feeling too elevated to do it yourself.”

“Unless we’ve _more_ hill to come…”

“Elevated?” D’Artagnan, barely winded, has plenty to spare on curiosity.

“Rank or age…”

Athos’s eyes narrow as his nostrils flare. The silence drops heavy among them.

“Seriously, though,” says Porthos, somewhere between earnest and teasing.

“No. Thank you. A mile?”

“Tops.”

He grunts in response and, unsmiling, lengthens his stride subtly. Porthos gives a small bark of something like laughter and increases speed. D’Artagnan rolls his eyes at their backs and accelerates again.

The day has been warm, a sweaty hike through woods haunted with small things that like to bite and not – as d’Artagnan pointed out to Athos in a twinkling undertone – in the fun way. Athos had felt his face freeze, hoped for it to be taken for his usual blank disinterest, then wondered, watching d’Artagnan as he’d strolled towards Porthos, why.

_If there’s anyone you can…_

Shut up.

Slapping, grumbling, and sweltering, they’d followed Porthos, even as trust in his promised treat had visibly waned with the light and against the miles. Now it’s heading for evening, the sun honeyed, the biting things more prevalent than ever, though at least held vaguely at bay by the green stuff d’Artagnan had pronounced good for it, which they’d smeared on themselves.

“You alright?” asks d’Artagnan.

Athos eyes him sideways. Unlike the others, he has elected to stay in his doublet, for the protection it offers his shoulders from chafing and he’s an uncomfortable shade of red. “I’m hot. I itch in unhappy places, my back is griping, and my left knee is threatening to never speak to me cordially again. Oh, and I’m sticky with not only sweat, but some kind of pungent, herbal sap _someone_ assured me would keep the beasts at bay.”

“So standard Grumpy Bugger, then,” comes Porthos’s voice back to them as he scouts for the next part of their mysterious route.

“This had better be worth it!” calls Athos, hearing how his voice grates. “And I’m thirsty, to boot,” he adds to d’Artagnan, who, while appearing a little weary, seems thoroughly unabashed.

“Didn’t I just finish saying it would be?!” A rustling pause. “Come on then – this way!”

“I’m used to _you_ being all cheerful amidst greenery,” he tells the Gascon by his side as they pick up pace towards the Parisian. “But when did Porthos get all woodsmanlike?”

D’Artagnan smirks cheerfully. “We’re clearly rubbing off on him.” He pulls a _what_ face at Athos when he raises his eyebrows, widens his eyes for comic effect, then grins broadly. “Come on! I want to see what this surprise is.”

“There’s at least another half-mile to go before… Oh.”

Porthos is standing, grinning at them. He waves an open hand up high as they approach.

“Voilà!”

Athos’s voice, dry as dust, asks: “What am I looking at?”

“What’s it look like?”

“A roof.”

“This is why they made you Captain, innit?”

Athos stops dead. “Explain.”

Porthos sniffs, turns, grins. “Abandoned, innit?”

“What is?”

“The village.”

“What, _this?_ ”

“Okay, not so much a village. Collection of houses further in. Everyone gone. Long gone. I checked.”

“Right…”

“And this one’s the nicest. Definitely the biggest. Probably the local nobs, or near enough in a place like this.”

“It looks a good size,” remarks d’Artagnan, gazing at the tiles that peer over the treetops.

“Two storeys,” says Porthos, promptly. “Kitchen, three bedrooms, parlour, some kind of workroom, most like.”

“Secure?” asks Athos, gaze distant.

He shrugs. “As it can be. Good doors, but they didn’t bother to lock anything.” Unspoken: no-one was coming back anytime soon. “Windows’re pretty big; glass. Reckon this is quite a new place – none of ’em broken, though. We can secure it ourselves pretty well.”

“Food?”

“Nah, not really.” Porthos shifts his pack meaningfully. “They cleared out pretty efficiently, you ask me – loads of notice. Not even a chicken left in the yard or a mouldy loaf in the pantry.”

“Hmm. Water?”

“Well out back. Clean. An actual outhouse.” The others grunt. “A stream that way,” he points away, “and another well in what I’ll call the village square,” he points further in, “for want of better words.”

“Fireplace? Chimney?”

“One in the kitchen, one in the parlour, one in the big bedroom.” He stares at him, so he rolls his eyes in recollection: “Chimney’s in good nick, far as I can tell.”

“Hmm.” Athos is looking, if you know the seeing of it, grudgingly impressed.

“Sounds good,” says d’Artagnan, as mildly cheerful as he dares.

They wait. Athos is running over the permutations in his head, examining the angles. His breath goes in deep, and they breathe their own relief. “Let’s have a look at this, then.”

D’Artagnan, aware that his bouncing is probably more irritant than cheer, strides alongside Porthos for this last stretch, as forest morphs to orchard.

“Nice one,” he says. He couldn’t tell you when his speech started blending with Porthos’s.

“Well,” says his brother, “seemed like something we all needed. Three full days here, only a few hours’ walk…” The horses are back at the camp. “Let’s give ’em a rest,” he’d said, “and go quiet-like.” By this they’d known it was edging on the further side of the rules.

“Good job we trust you.”

“Hah.” A walking silence, ears stretched for any footsteps other than their own. “Here, I’d’ve thought you’d’ve been off to Paris like a _shot_.”

D’Artagnan grimaces, all the emotions fighting for dominance in his expression, as ever. “The way I see it,” he says, shifting his shoulders under his pack, tone a little stiff with something like rehearsal, “I could spend the first proper leave I’ve had in years galloping through war-wary countryside on a series of post horses until I reach my wife, interrupt whatever she’s doing to insist she embrace her stinking, starving, knackered husband, who’s as likely to fall asleep on her as offer her anything decent in the way of recompense, then drag myself out of bed pretty much the next day and race back.”

“That’s a no, then.”

“And a bit late to change my mind now.”

Porthos’s face quirks to one side. “Pretty much. Still,” he adds after a moment’s silence, “got some advantages right here, ain’t we?”

Athos catches up with them as they clear the trees to hear d’Artagnan saying: “Yeah, true, but it being warm, you know what _I_ ’m looking forward to?”

“What’s that?”

“An actual bath.”

Porthos groans. “Dear Christ alive, _yes_.”

“I will _race_ you,” says d’Artagnan, and Athos has to fight down the urge to laugh, but does grunt at this.

“How about you?” he demands on a twist of neck, eyes sparkling.

“Walls,” he says, softly.

“Eh?” asks Porthos.

“Walls that stay put.”

“Amen, brother,” says Porthos. “And a door you can lock, or at least close properly. Oh, sorry,” he adds, soberly, “ _Captain_.”

Athos groans.

“Oh, I see.” He nudges d’Artagnan. Grins. “Not the Captain tonight, then.”

“No,” he says, quiet and slow. “Not the Captain, I pray you.”

D’Artagnan’s breath hitches and his eyes go dark with memory.

“Son,” says Porthos, stalking ahead to push open the door, “never play la prime with folk who ain’t your friends, I _beg_ you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “la prime” is a forerunner of the game of poker.


	2. Under A Roof

Inside it’s as Porthos said: a townhouse with no town, he thinks, or a farmhouse with no farm.The air is less stale than he would have supposed, though they leave the door open all the while they’re putting down packs with a variety of grateful groans, and poking around the kitchen, to dispel the last of any lingering bad humours.

Of all the things he wouldn’t have predicted missing, he muses, it’s looking through a window to the outside, let alone the smells of indoors. Quite what those smells are, he’s at a small loss to say precisely, though dust is definitely a component. Wood. Wax. Plaster. Something to do with the stillness that collects dust. D’Artagnan is dappled with it when he comes back to report on what he’s found. Or not found.

“I _said_ : they must have had a cart.”

“Hmm? Oh, yes, probably.” A pause. “Why do you say that?”

“Because even the crocks are gone.”

“Hmm?”

D’Artagnan rolls an indulgent look the former noble’s way. “People don’t keep their staples in neat little jars in the kitchen and go and buy another each time they run out,” he explains patiently. “The pantry should have big,” he gestures, “earthenware jars of flour, and oats, and salt and the like for decanting.”

“Mustard?” Porthos is slightly out of breath.

“Most people don’t consume it by the pound, brother,” retorts d’Artagnan without turning his head.

“So there ain’t any?”

“All there is,” says d’Artagnan, shifting to keep them both roughly in view; Athos steps to one side, then forward to help Porthos in with the bucket he’s hauling, “is like you said: mouse droppings, cobwebs, and an acre of dust…”

“A good half of which is in your hair,” remarks Athos, voice a little strained. It’s a large bucket.

“Good job I’m having a bath then, isn’t it?” he responds airily.

“After me,” retorts Porthos, nodding Athos sideways to the fireplace.

“Says who?”

“Says the man hauling the fucking bathwater.”

“Oh. You know, you should try walking that,” says d’Artagnan, leaning back on the wall and crossing his arms.

“Thanks for that, d’Artagnan,” grunts Porthos. D’Artagnan smirks unhelpfully at his six-month-old revenge. Athos eyes them both narrowly. He decides that the antagonism is mostly performative, so leaves it be. He has little breath for anything subtle, in any case.

As it stands, d’Artagnan cheerily offers to go find wood for the fire, picking up his camping axe on the way, as they stand, weapons shed, hands on hips, trying to work out how the next part will go. The massive, soot-blackened cauldron of the hearth was clearly considered too unwieldy to transport; every other cooking vessel is as absent as flour, salt, and mustard.

“We’ll use one of our pans,” says Athos, nodding to Porthos’s gear, “to transfer water into the vessel until the bucket’s light enough to tilt.”

“Good enough,” decides Porthos, and they set to, bailing in tandem with a saucepan and a frying pan, and it’s to splashing and a mildly competitive species of laughter that d’Artagnan, glowing with exertion, returns.

“What took you so long?” gasps Porthos.

“It’s harder with a smaller axe.”

“Now, I’m told that depends what you’re using it for,” rejoins Porthos with a waggle of eyebrows that has them groaning.

Grinning massively, he gestures to d’Artagnan to bring his armful of wood over. Shaking his head, the latter complies. “Though why I’m bothering, when you’ll only rearrange it, I’ve no idea.”

Athos huffs a laugh at this, and then another when Porthos aims a mock-affronted look his way. Grinning again, he bends to arrange the wood in apparently the perfect conformation. Athos turns to smile at d’Artagnan, who rolls his eyes at him. Athos imagines, bright as fever, pulling him close, one arm about waist, kissing him hard until his eyes roll again. D’Artagnan raises an eyebrow. Clearly he’s reading _something_ in his expression. He hoists one in return to get a slanting expression of sheer cheek batted back at him.

“Right!” says Porthos, sitting back on his heels and dusting his hands off.

“All satisfactory?”

“Obviously.” He holds out a hand. “Striker? Kindling?”

They rummage in their packs and pockets, and soon he’s coaxing sparks with gentle breath to be the tiny flames he beckons along the smaller pieces of wood before darting to the larger.

“Out of interest,” asks d’Artagnan, as Athos resumes bailing the water into the cauldron, “what are you doing?”

“Transferring the water into the… into that,” he points, tamping his expression to neutral while Porthos “tuh”s on a chuffing breath and shakes his head.

“Mm. Why?”

“To heat the water for the bath,” he says, slowly.

“What, all of it?”

“Yes, d’Artagnan, all, bec–”

“Because that’s only any good if you don’t want to bathe until tomorrow.”

“What?”

“Why?”

D’Artagnan is shaking his head.

“What?”

“I keep forgetting how monumentally undomestic you two are. That,” he points, “will take _hours_ to heat.”

“So what’s _your_ solution?” asks Athos, still aiming for neutral.

“Yeah,” demands Porthos.

“Well, you heat in batches in small pans, like the ones you’re holding, then add to the cauldron to stay warm enough while you heat the new batches.” He’s standing with his hands on his hips, looking so cheerfully superior that Athos is visited by a fleeting urge to clout him.

Instead, he nods, tight-lipped, peers into the cauldron, sighs, and says: “Right. Let’s start doing that.”

Porthos groans, but shifts up to comply.

“And put the lid on it in the meantime.”

“Aye, Captain Kitchen,” says Porthos, casting around for it.

“Well then,” replies their commander, nodding mock-imperiously, “you two get on with it while I go fetch the bath.”

“Er…” says Porthos.

“ _What?_ ” Athos raises his eyebrows.

“I see,” says d’Artagnan. “Then I’ll go hunt for one.”

“You do that,” mutters Porthos. As d’Artagnan’s footsteps depart, he looks up at Athos. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise to me – I don’t even like baths.”

“What’s that?”

“You end up sitting in your own filth.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” He gazes at him. “When was the last time you saw me in a bath?”

“That… that’s a good point.”

*

Thirty minutes later, they have a respectable amount of hot water, only a few scalds between them, and Athos’s back has progressed from griping to arguing with him, for crouching at an awkward angle so soon after the long hike.

“I told ya…”

Athos just grunts.

“Charming. You wanna get someone to look at that.”

“I’ll just stroll back to camp and ask Desmarais to check it out, shall I?”

“Or one of us could help.”

“What?”

Porthos summons a patient look onto his face. “It just needs putting back in place, is all.”

“It’s not a dislocated shoulder, I just need to stretch for a bit.”

“You don’t trust me, I get it.” He turns back to the fire.

He stares at him for a bit. “How did you summon _that_ from…”

“No, just, I get it – I’m no good for delicate stuff.”

“I never said…”

*

A clang and some distant swearing. A closer scrape of metal and stone.

“So I foun– what the _fuck_ …?!”

Porthos looks over his shoulder. “It’s all right – I’m just helping Athos.”

“With _what?!_ ”

He looks forward again. Grunts lightly. “He put his back out. Not as young as he once was.”

“Right,” slowly. A pause. “Right.”

“What’s wrong, d’Artagnan?” Athos’s voice is muffled.

A rattling clank. D’Artagnan’s footsteps come closer. “Have a think,” he says, slowly, jaw sounding stiff, “and tell me what you think that looks like from behind, especially in this low light.”

Silence. “Oh,” says Athos.

“Oh!” says Porthos, and springs away from him.

Athos turns to lean his back on the wall he’s been propping his hands on. Looks at d’Artagnan, who’s standing with his hands on his weapons belt, colour high, chest still heaving a little. “Hello,” says d’Artagnan, meaningfully.

“I was just massaging his back!” says Porthos from beside the fire, where he’s busily heating another saucepan.

“So I hear,” he says, drily. “Feeling better?’ he asks him.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” calls Porthos.

D’Artagnan rolls his eyes. And then he smirks, and reaches his hand out. Athos pulls himself forward and d’Artagnan gives a quick tug to stumble him into his arms.

“Good job I’ve got to spend a lot of concentration on this pan so I don’t burn myself,” calls Porthos.

“Good job,” murmurs d’Artagnan, and leans in.

Athos is still realising the full potential of this relatively new freedom to be frank in Porthos’s company. It’s a different kind of thrill that coils in his gut as they kiss, slow and heavy. Instead of the fear of discovery, it’s the relief from shame and censure that is the kind of terrifying he associates with the first time he left Pinon, apparently for good; or when he walked fast from her, kneeling in the dust, ripping her locket from him. Or when d’Artagnan first showed him that his fantasies were not impossible, shameful dreams, but something to be shared with a full and open heart.

He finds himself pressed back into the wall not long relinquished, revels in it for a few sweet moments before pushing back firmly at d’Artagnan’s shoulders. As his lover breaks from him, it’s with a mix of confusion, frustration, and chagrin chasing themselves across his face. He leans forward, murmurs very softly in the ear further from the fire: “It’s not fair.” A side-nod. “On _him_.”

“No,” breathes d’Artagnan. “Of course.” Now he’s the one to pull back, and chagrin is the whole of his expression until he deliberately brightens it and says: “Look what I found!” only maybe a touch too loudly.

“Where was it?” grunts Porthos, eyes still on the fire, folded neatly onto his heels.

“Cellar of the next house over.” D’Artagnan’s hands busy themselves absently undoing his weapons belt. “The others clearly didn’t have the means to take as much as this lot.” He places it, rather carefully, on top of an old chest in a nook of the opposite wall obviously also deemed too weighty.

“Any food?”

He grimaces. “None you want.”

“Ah.”

“Unless very plump rats are to your taste.”

“Not so much these days, oddly.”

Athos moves closer and peers into the curving metal vessel. He looks up into d’Artagnan’s smirk. “Very thoughtful,” he says, smiling.

“What is?”

“Well, he doesn’t really like baths,” says d’Artagnan, brightly, “so I brought something that’s more his style.”

“What – a watering can?”

“They were all filthy,” says d’Artagnan, promptly, with a grin that earns him a stern look. “And you want to be clean, don’t you?”

“Yes,” says Athos, slowly, with a hint of suspicion. “I’m also hungry and thirsty, and I doubt I’m alone in this particular, so let’s start addressing that.”

“Right you are,” says Porthos.


	3. Just Desserts

This first meal in the house is not destined to be much more elaborate than what they ate on the trail – bread, cheese, dried meat, washed down with water – while every so often one or other of them will get up to pour more hot water into the cauldron, set another pan to heating, build up the fire a little more. But it’s more luxurious, somehow, for the use of a table and chairs, cups instead of canteens, enjoying a slower pace, how they’re tucking into fruit – both fresh and dried – as a kind of dessert, and making happy noises over the wine. Athos has, as is his habit these days, slaked his body’s thirst and more with water first, and is sipping at his wine where Porthos is rather slugging his back. He eyes him sidelong for a moment as the Parisian wipes his beard with extravagant good humour and pours more, but decides to leave things be.

Quite apart from anything else, Porthos was always the one who’d remonstrated with him least about his drinking, more often than not the one steadying him home more-or-less intact, pouring him into bed surprisingly gently. He does not like to think of those days, feels his mind shy from the man he was, knows also that he cannot afford to forget where despair can lead.

“You alright?” murmurs d’Artagnan.

“Mm. Just thinking.”

“‘Terrible habit’,” says Porthos, who appears to have missed none of this, “‘in a soldier.’”

“‘You leave that foolishness to the officers, boy,’” he rejoins in a happy snarl, and they approximately chorus: “‘they’re born to it. You ain’t!’”

D’Artagnan rolls his eyes where a few years ago he’d have begged for the origins, or pouted for their reminiscences, one apart from the three.

“Dunno about you gents,” says Porthos, sprawling back, “but I am ready for my ablu-ti-ons.”

“After me,” retorts d’Artagnan promptly, folding his arms.

“Says who?”

“Says the man who hauled the fucking bath.”

“I’ll toss you for it,” as he leans forward.

“Brother, I’m not _that_ desperate.”

“So does that mean I can go first?”

Athos sighs pointedly as d’Artagnan puts his hands on the table and makes as if to stand.

They turn to look at him. “Well?”

“Gentlemen, there’s an easy way to solve this…”

Porthos pulls a dry expression at him. “Let me guess: you get first dibs of the hot water coz you’re Captain?”

Athos cocks his head. “Oh. Actually, that’s an even better idea and involves a lot less effort on my part. Nicely done.” He stands, slips his doublet off and onto the chair, and heads for the fireplace, undoing the ties at his neck and wrists as he goes.

“Nicely done,” says d’Artagnan to Porthos sourly.

“In my defence,” he says, words blurring slightly at the edges, “I didn’t _actually_ think he’d actually go for it.”

“In other words: you didn’t _actually_ think.”

“That too.”

They stand, look towards the fireplace, where Athos is stripping off his shirt.

“If we don’t get a wriggle on, he’ll be naked,” remarks Porthos.

He smirks. “Not exactly a disincentive.” He sighs when Porthos slants a slightly wobbly, but definitely ironic expression at him. “Fine…”

“You do realise,” he calls out to Athos as they head towards him, “we’ll never know your genius suggestion if you follow through with this.”

“And yet…” he says, over his shoulder.

“Come on,” he says, coaxingly, tilting his head forward and gazing at Athos as soulfully as he can manage.

Athos twists, hands on his points, and starts to laugh, turning fully. “You’re going to have to do better than that!”

“I’ll do _much_ better than that, but not in mixed company.”

“ _I_ don’t mind,” says Porthos, leaning back on the wall, arms folded.

D’Artagnan reaches Athos, and, biting his lip, runs a light finger slantways down the other’s torso.

Athos shivers, but looks unimpressed.

“ _Porthos_ doesn’t mind…” murmurs d’Artagnan, leaning in closer.

“Fine,” says Athos, holding up his hands and backing slightly. “Fine.”

D’Artagnan sniffs, mock-affronted. “Your loss.” He grins. “Now, about this brilliant plan of yours…”

*

They dump their packs on the floor of the master bedroom, and start rooting through for towels, soap, and clean linen.

“Are you sure about this?” asks d’Artagnan.

“Hmm?”

“Or should I let Porthos toss me for it…?”

“Mmh.”

D’Artagnan looks up as Athos stills to see him gazing rather through him, clearly on the outside of a large thought.

“What is it?” he asks, gently.

“This…” a slow palm drifts sideways from his hip. “This… time… away.” He grinds to a halt.

“Yes?”

“I take it. I mean, you’d like. That is.”

He takes a small leap into the fray of his lover’s emotions. “Do I want to spend the time eating slowly, drinking wine, sleeping late, and making love with you in as many ways as we can configure? Yes.” He frowns a little. “Do you?”

“Oh, yes. Very… very much so.” And it’s the stammering of desire, not reluctance, he hears to his relief.

He rises slowly, towel slung over his shoulder. “But there’s something on your mind…?”

Athos frowns in sudden concentration, his gaze a little slippery. “Hmm. It occurs to me that it’s been a while since we’ve done anything more… _elaborate_ than…”

“Sucking each other off as quickly as possible?” His eyes roll to summon recollection. “Which _particular_ event was over a year ago…”

Athos’s mouth quirks unhappily. “Quite.” He clears his throat lightly. “And we have time for more…” he gestures vaguely, as if cupping things together, “that is… more than just–”

“We have time,” says d’Artagnan, mounting another rescue mission, “to be more like in Orléans.”

Athos feels relief surge through him. Nods emphatically. “Yes.” He smiles. “Time for discovery.”

D’Artagnan’s expression rapidly becomes less Gently Helpful, more Hotly Hopeful. “Time to be slow,” he caresses the word. “Time for more… what was it?” He makes a show of recalling: “ _Elaborate_ gifts.”

Athos smirks a little. Then nods his head once, trying to convey everything he’s feeling. Adds: “Time to take care of each other.”

“Yes.” Athos watches d’Artagnan’s smile soften then his eyes go a little distant. “Maybe…”

“Yes?”

“Maybe, um, maybe try some new things? If. If there’s, if you’d like…?”

Now it’s his turn to reassure. “Of course. If you’d. If there’s something you’d…”

“Yes. Er. A couple of things, actually.”

Athos feels one eyebrow climb sharply, but he quirks a small smile under it, hopes it looks amenable but curious.

“If it prove no danger to…”

 _Nice and formal, that_.

Hush.

“No, of course. I. I trust you, Athos.”

“As I you.”

“That. Oh. Good.” D’Artagnan looks more confounded by that than he would have imagined. He looks on the verge of saying something more, so Athos waits, quiet, trying not to guess, to just be open.

“Safe but stimulating,” he says at last.

Athos catches the reference. “Yes,” he confirms slowly.

“See, I’ve been thinking about this,” says d’Artagnan, and there’s an edge of tension to his voice.

“Oh yes?”

“Yes. About. About staying safe. You know?”

He nods.

“And,” he licks his lips, “if anything’s, you know, too much,” he accelerates, “we should do something like clicking our fingers. Once means: slow down; twice means: give me a moment; thrice means: stop now.”

“And if we’re not in a position to click?” He thinks of the knitted ‘rope’ he’s fairly sure is currently in d’Artagnan’s pack, and surely the root of at least one of the _new things_ d’Artagnan has in mind.

_Tell him._

What?

_Tell him you want him to…_

Fuck off. He focuses hard on his lover, feeling grateful that his gaze has slipped a little past Athos’s shoulder.

“Tap, I guess, or whistle, or… we talked before about a cipher – words we wouldn’t normally say…”

“We can put some more thought into that.”

“Good.” He swallows. “Er, good.”

“And is it both?”

“Hm?” D’Artagnan’s eyes are far away.

He clears his throat. “If what one is receiving is too much, or if what one is bestowing, also?”

“Um. Both. Yes.”

“Good.” He smiles at him. “So. What would you like right now?”

D’Artagnan beams at him, all that tension dropping off him in an enviable instant. “Actually? That bath.”

“Of course.”

“And a kiss.”

He smirks a little. “Any particular order?”

“Kiss then bath then kiss.”

“I see…”

*

“You’ve got to hand it to him,” admits Porthos, stirring a little, head back, “this _is_ a much better idea.”

“Hmm,” says d’Artagnan. “It’s certainly more efficient.”

“That’s our Captain.” He cracks an eye open and catches d’Artagnan’s. “Or not tonight, as the case may be.”

“Hah. Pass the soap?”

“If you pass the wine?”

“Er…” he leans, slopping a little water as he does so, “oo-oop… gotcha!” He snags it with his middle finger and rocks it back towards him, catching it as it leans.

“Aaand…” Porthos rummages, “there’s the soap.”

They negotiate the passing of the two dangerously slippery objects with all the skill for which their regiment is renowned.

“Mmmh,” sighs Porthos after a long pull. “Lovely.”

“Better?”

“Bloody brilliant.”

“Good.”

“You gonna soap up, then?”

“Yep. Soak then soap.”

“Everyone’s got their rituals.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll close my eyes, then.”

“Um, it’s. I mean. Thanks.” The squeak and creak of someone standing, the ripple of the shift in stance. The smell of soap, the texture of slick hands on bare skin.

He clears his throat. “Talkin’ o’ which – you ever see him do his?”

“Hmm?”

“In the mornings.”

“What? Oh… the bucket of cold water thing?”

“Yeah. Freaked me out the first time.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“Thought he was trying to drown hisself.”

“Hmm.”

“’Course, he ain’t so bad these days.”

“Hmm. I’d hope not.”

“Yeah, no. Seriously.” He pushes as much serious into his voice as he can. Feels his brow rise in the middle, tipsy sincerity beaming from him. “He’s better. You know? Like: much better.” A pause. “I reckon that’s you.”

Another pause, filled by the splash and eddy of someone sluicing himself down.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to…”

“No. No, that’s. It’s good.” His voice rises a little at the end, though.

“Sorry.”

“No. No, seriously, Porthos, it’s alright. I just…” Another splashing pause. “You know when you wish for something really hard? And then it’s true? And you want to trust it? And mostly you do, but sometimes it’s…”

“Yeah,” says Porthos. “Yeah, I reckon I do.” He cups water up over his own face, planes it off, pulls his hand down around his beard to wring it out a little.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, like…” He feels his face squeeze, smooths it out quickly. A breath, in-out, come on. “Like being a soldier, then being called for a Musketeer. Didn’t unpack after _that_ move for a month. Not that there was, you know, much, but. Yeah. Took me well over a year to buy a chair. Huh.” It’s half-laugh, half-something else.

“What changed your mind?”

“Eh?” His mind is drifting.

“About the chair.”

“Oh. The third time he, er. The third time I had a visitor. Sitting on the floor by the fire? Nah.”

“I dunno,” says d’Artagnan, “that can be quite nice.”

“Not with no fucking rug it’s not.”

“So you bought a rug as well.”

“Yeah. Nice one.”

“I know – I’ve seen it.”

“Nah. That’s the replacement. First one… had an accident.”

“Well, _that_ sounds like a story…”

“Hah. Yeah, it… yeah. I don’t tell it as well, though, so.”

“Hold on, I’m getting out.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. Don’t want to get too wrinkly.”

“Zat why he don’t like baths?”

“Hah!” Voice muffled and ruffled by the towel. “Maybe.”

“Knew all that ‘sitting in your own filth’ thing was just a–”

“‘Just a’… what?” Athos sounds only slightly out of breath.

He slews his head and shoulders around, peers at him. “Blimey. You look… refreshed…”

“Turns out river water’s still quite… bracing this time of year.” He sets the ewer and basin down just inside the door, through which twilight is glowing. His dirty clothes are slung over his shoulder and he appears to be wearing only a clean shirt.

“You didn’t!” exclaims d’Artagnan.

“It’s healthy!” he protests.

Porthos and d’Artagnan stare at each other then back at him.

“‘Wash hot, rinse cold’, you… you never…?”

“Sounds like a way of making a virtue of thrift with hot water, I reckon,” says Porthos, leaning back and stretching out fully, finally, into the space left by d’Artagnan’s fear of wrinkles.

“You going to stew in there a while longer?” asks d’Artagnan, voice embroidered with amusement.

“You’ve got your rituals,” he replies, prim as a pigeon, ruining it with a wink.

“Filthy,” mutters Athos as he passes by.

“Hah. Fuckin’ nobles. _Some_ of us know better than to piss in the bathwater. Specially when we’re sharin’.”

“Fancy some more hot?” asks d’Artagnan, chuckling at his enthusiastic nod.

“That’s brotherhood,” groans Porthos, in high content as the temperature rises again, warmth blooming up his shins, closing his eyes in bliss, “right there.”

A friendly, clattering murmur surrounds him, before their feet mount the stairs. When he opens his eyes again, a while later, it’s to a bolted door, shuttered windows, and the warm glow of the low fire and a nearby candle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Whatever-You-Celebrate. Hope it’s been exactly what you need this year so far.


	4. Mordant Humours

Their unhurried footsteps up the stairs make for a companionable duet of creak and scrape, d’Artagnan’s footprints showing up damp and clear in the dust that remains. Once inside the bedroom, he’s thankful for them having taken the time before bathing to sweep everything out, and for the cache of mismatched bedding culled from the other houses. D’Artagnan spots him looking, smirks, says: “That’s going to make a change from bedrolls and oilcloth.”

“Never mind tree roots that seem to grow overnight…”

“And sliding down a hill you didn’t know you’d pitched over…”

“And blocking out Porthos’s snores…”

“It’s not the snores so much these days – I find them almost soothing.”

“Really?” He considers. “Hmm, most nights it’s fine, in fact, just sometimes…”

“When your mind’s on other things?”

“Ah. Yes.”

“Talking of which…”

“Yes?” He suspects that d’Artagnan is not talking about rations, armaments, or unit placements.

“In light of our earlier conversation…”

“Right…?”

“Would you be… amenable to being… surprised…?”

He fights off the temptation to say something sarcastic, trying: “Probably…” instead.

“If it was something I was very sure you’d like?”

He tries telling himself: “Not the Captain tonight,” but his tactician mind is spinning over potentials, ranking them for possibility, feasibility, desirability, and he interrupts himself to ask: “Would it involve… company…?”

D’Artagnan blinks hard, blank for a moment. “Huh? Oh!” His whole body starts. “No.” Quickly. “No…” Slowly. “Unless…” he points to him, eyebrows high.

“Not unless… I-I mean…” he points back.

“Because…”

“Not…”

“Er. No. No, that’s not, not what I had in mind, certainly.”

“Oh. Good. I mean, not. I. Right.”

“Okay.”

“Hmm.”

“Well, that was awkward.”

“Yes.”

“I’m just going to, er, to dry myself a little more.”

“Of course.”

D’Artagnan moves closer to the small fire and unhitches his towel to rub vigorously over his soles and between his toes, slowing to draw the cloth in circular motions up his legs. It slows even more when he reaches his thighs, turns gentle, caressing, and, unable to tear his gaze away, his heart thumps in his throat.

“D’Artagnan?” He can hear it shake his voice a little, clears his throat.

“Yes?”

“I trust you.”

He smiles over his shoulder, still bent over a little, hair hanging in a wave of damp silk. “Thank you.”

“I’d happily take any gift you wanted to bring me.”

“Excellent choice of words.”

“Well, I’m known for it.”

“Hah. Athos?”

“Yes?”

“Will you take that shirt off for me, please?”

“Of course,” he smiles, and ducks his head to comply, dropping it on the floor on top of his other clothes.

D’Artagnan’s breath goes in sharply and he looks over at him.

“Do you realise,” he says, and Athos realises that he’s trying to sound offhand and knows that he’s failing miserably, “that this is the first time we’ve been naked together in nearly two years?”

As Athos opens his mouth he adds: “And no, I’m not counting the time we all washed in the river near Tournai,” after a particularly hot and filthy eight day campaign, where Bolloré, with all the bardic fervour of his Breton blood, comprehensively cursed: the Spanish; the Austrians; the Flemish; the Swedes for their lack of fortitude; every single Hapsburg whose name he could remember, with assistance from everyone within earshot still capable of speech; the English for no better reason than his general despite for them; the flies; the sun; certain of the French Marshalls; and the last barber who he’d seen, who’d pulled his tooth badly, leaving him with, he claimed, rotten pieces still embedded in his gum. (He’d also blessed: the river; the ford they were currently befouling; the Pope; the Virgin Mother; both French monarchs and their son; Porthos and d’Artagnan for helping him off with his armour; and Athos for lending him some soap and, as an afterthought, for being their commander. Shortly after that he’d sat straight down, strings cut, submerged to his shoulders, and wept like a child.)

“I doubt you could have seen anything of interest under all that,” he murmurs, the river rising muddied, bloodied behind his eyes.

“Even had I been free to gaze as I am now.” He makes a strange little chuff of sound. “I swear, Athos, you are more handsome to me than ever right now, and I. Please. _Please_ , will you come over here?”

Tired, scarred, still sporting fading bruises from their last round of combat, feeling every one of his years in the wake of those jagged memories, he looks over sharply. D’Artagnan looks back at him steadily enough, but his eyes are dark with desire, and flushed as his lover is all over from his bath and the fire, Athos feels powerless to resist walking towards him when he moves up onto one knee and beckons him on a slow smile.

He pushes himself to make his pace deliberate, a means of heeling down the nervousness that’s rising in him, and feeding the thickening arousal between them.

“It starts now?” he murmurs, trepidation coiling sharp-sweet in him.

“Yes,” he whispers, smile sharpening. “Don’t forget to click if you…” Athos nods. “Good. Give me your hand.”

“My h–?” he says, even as he reaches the right towards him.

D’Artagnan stays low, takes his hand, pulling him a little closer on a single, stumbling step, and brings it to his cheek, nuzzling into the palm, eyes closing at a luxurious kind of speed. Athos sighs, then, as d’Artagnan’s lips part over the pad of flesh at the base of his thumb, he feels his own dry abruptly. His lover’s tongue skates over the muscle shortly afterwards, and he hears his own breath stutter. D’Artagnan scatters increasingly hot, wet kisses over the whole of his palm before running the edges of his teeth over the webbing between thumb and forefinger.

Athos’s sigh is lightly voiced but seems to sing in the crackling air of the bedroom. He catches the flash of d’Artagnan’s eyes, follows his lips as they trace that pad again and land lightly on his wrist where he begins again to kiss gently then, without warning, nips him just over the pulse.

“Hm!” says Athos, then “Ah!” as d’Artagnan opens his mouth to bite harder into the skin of his wrist. D’Artagnan flicks a swift look his way and seems to take something from his expression as he smiles against him, lays a broad stripe of tongue over his prickling flesh, drawing a moan from him that edges onto a whimper.

He stares, transfixed, heart and breath a riot in his throat and chest as d’Artagnan works his way up his inner arm, tongue flicking between gentle nips and harder pinches of teeth, and the occasional broader, he can only think of it as: Proper Bite, sometimes going so far as to take the depth of his forearm into his mouth and slowly increase the pressure until Athos’s shallow breaths are all helplessly voiced, his leading leg starting to shake. And d’Artagnan himself is humming and crooning, occasionally moaning, tiny sounds of appetite that Athos feels go deep inside his chest, summoning ever louder, higher-pitched noises from his own throat until d’Artagnan, on something like a growl, pulls himself up to fasten his teeth in the soft flesh just inside his elbow, where he’s never been able to reach himself, and it feel like his strength unspools in a rush as he staggers, eyes rolling. “Oh, _God!_ ”

D’Artagnan’s hand snaps to catch him by the hip and steady him, and his eyes are dark, and somehow sharper, harder than they usually are when they’re intimate together. He has a moment to wonder if this is how he looks when taking command of d’Artagnan before his lover switches swiftly to pull his fingers from where they’ve been clutching at his own leg, lending teeth and tongue to Athos’s untouched arm, and he staggers again, drowning, awash in arousal from knees to throat.

D’Artagnan rises to catch him around the waist as a wordless, wavering keen breaks from him, and proceeds to cover his torso with a rising series of edged kisses. He is dimly aware of how hard he is, coming undone at the ungovernable nature of his desire. As d’Artagnan stands fully in front of him he rather sags into his embrace, and when his lover kisses him, slow and certain, he moans, then gasps and cries out against his mouth as those teeth catch in his lower lip. He sways and rocks into him, clutching at his shoulders, entirely beyond volition.

“Come on,” says d’Artagnan. “I think you need to lie down.”

“Mmmh!” he nods, coordination adrift, allows himself to be guided back and pushed to the bed. D’Artagnan bends and lifts his legs to the mattress, swivelling him, and he flails, swimming himself further up and across it, and looks down himself to see d’Artagnan grinning, still sharp, still… _predatory_ , he thinks. Dear God, yes, that’s it. And he tries to choke down his whimper as d’Artagnan drops forward onto his knees to crawl up the bed between his legs, lifting and parting them over his shoulders, nuzzling into him, starting to pepper his thighs with more biting kisses, still switching between different sizes, speeds, pressures, softening many with broad swipes of tongue and tender presses of his lips, but just as often leaving the sting to travel throughout his reverberating flesh. And Athos suddenly gets it – as his mind starts to pare down to its absolutes, he glimpses through the bombardment of pleasurable pain and painful pleasure – the truth that d’Artagnan is _learning_ him as he teases and moans at the taste and texture of his unbearably hot flesh: listening, watching, recording everything, logging every response he makes, how and when he writhes, the half-formed words that fall from him; and he feels, abrupt as ambush, so monumentally _cared for_ that he can barely contain it.

Later, he will try to explain how he tipped past an edge at this point, leaning into the tingle of a long drop, but he lacks the words, even to himself, only knows that he’s clinging to the bed, clawing the sheets as his abdomen tightens, and he forgets not to thrust at the air, hips rocking uncontrollably, moaning, keening on every breath even as d’Artagnan’s hands reach to pin him to the mattress so he can bury his teeth in the tenderest flesh at the top of Athos’s thigh. And Athos loses his grip on everything with something like a shriek, plummeting, one glorious rush of surrender as a crest of tangled pleasure carries him away like a tidal bore.

He returns to himself to find d’Artagnan, raised up a little on his elbows, gazing up the length of his torso with something like awe. The length of his gleaming, spattered torso.

“What?” he asks, a little blearily, and drops his heavy head to the mattress. “Wha–?”

“I. Well,” says d’Artagnan, sounding a little dazed, “you took me by surprise somewhat there.”

“Too-took y- _you_ by surp-sur-surprise? Huh!”

“Well, _fine_ , I ambushed you and you self-destructed in retaliation.”

“I never…”

“Athos,” he explains, patient tone fraying a little under everything else he’s clearly feeling, “I didn’t so much as _breathe_ on your cock…”

“Oh. Ohhhh… Oh! Hah!” He thinks some more. “Oh.”

D’Artagnan chuckles like he can’t help it. “Exactly,” and he snorts involuntarily back at him, pulling a giggle from d’Artagnan when his eyebrows go up to hear himself make such an ungainly noise.

Then his lover, eyes hot as coals, hauls himself further up his body and begins to clean him off with his tongue. He moans at this, seemingly powerless to protest in any fashion, writhing slightly under these tender ministrations. He feels himself arch, slow and heavy, into those soft, breathy caresses, hears d’Artagnan hum as he progresses up the impressively wide blast radius.

He groans lightly as the process reaches his chest, hearing the soft rasp against the hairs there. “You know,” says d’Artagnan, resting his chin on his lower ribs for a moment, “I’m almost jealous.”

“Mzzwutnow?” He clears his throat. “You’re. You, why you jealous?”

“‘Almost’…”

“Hah.”

“I thought: if either of us were to come untouched it would be me.”

“Heh. Nearly.”

“Hm?”

“Nearly, you. You nearly. ’parently.”

“Hm? Oh. Oh! I told you about that, did I?”

Athos, eyes barely open, holds his hand up, thumb and forefinger very close together.

D’Artagnan smiles. “So I did.” He leans forward to suckle away the splash that adorns the tips of his chest hair just above his nipple.

Athos growls. “Come up here you… heathen… and kiss me.”

“‘Heathen’?”

“I dunno, just come and kiss me.”

“Whatever you say.”

D’Artagnan writhes up his body and he latches onto his mouth like a lamprey, moaning into the taste of himself. D’Artagnan hums and presses into him, all hot, hard lengths, and Athos rolls them onto their sides with a sound very like a growl, which wavers at the edges as d’Artagnan presses his teeth very gently into his lower lip.

He breaks back, a little breathless, to say: “I’m doomed now, aren’t I?”

“Almost certainly,” agrees d’Artagnan, his twinkling expression underlain with something much warmer as he presses again on a tilt of hips into Athos who, to his utter astonishment, feels himself swell in answer. The look on his face is clearly, well, a transparent indication of his feelings, as d’Artagnan outright laughs.

Eyes hooded, he squeezes his flank in retaliation. Sobering a little, d’Artagnan gasps: “I’m so sorry, it’s just… your face is wide open right now, and it’s absolutely glorious.”

“What have you done to me?” he breathes.

“Well,” says d’Artagnan, nuzzling into his neck, “first I, mmh, drew your hand towards me and mm-hm, made love to that, then, mmh, started to lay my, mmh, my teeth” a light scrape across his pulse, “in earnest onto your wrist and ar- _oww!_ ” Athos has pinched him.

“Hah, well,” he says, drawing back a little and looking him in the eyes, “then I would say: I’ve answered your desire. That’s always somewhat foundering.”

“Mmmh.”

“The first time you entered me,” and his gaze is soft and earnest now, “I felt like everything I was was falling apart. I had to ride the edge of sheer panic. It was _intense_.” He says this as though it’s a good thing. Athos blinks.

“Oh.” He remembers analysing and responding to his lover’s need as if it were the best and only decision, checking every time. But in this he’s only ever reflected d’Artagnan’s attitude back to him, since the moment he came to him in the forest. He doesn’t know how to say this, if d’Artagnan even knows. He gives himself a swift, internal shake and says, instead: “How did you know?”

D’Artagnan outright smirks. “Ah.” He visibly considers teasing Athos, then smiles more broadly. “Well, you confirmed it that time in the woods recently, but actually: it was Constance.”

“Oh. Oh!” And first he’s writhing on the floor of a clearing, with d’Artagnan’s teeth buried in his neck, and then clutching the beginnings of a bruise – among other things – backing away from Constance on a rush of confused desire, threaded through with livid shame. Before he can help himself, he asks, voice still blurred: “Did she tell you about…?”

“Er,” his eyes narrow a little, “she just told me that I should use my teeth more on you – that she reckoned you were aroused by being properly bitten.” Oh God. It all curls through him again and he nearly writhes with it, feels himself swell further. “Nothing much more than that. We had minutes before we were due to part, so…”

“And she chose to tell you _that_ …?”

“She called it a gift, something to carry from… from her into… war.” D’Artagnan’s face is dropping a little; Athos can feel him slumping somewhat. He leans into him and kisses his mouth. After a moment, he responds, deepening it slowly, starting to hum again.

Their kisses become swifter and deeper, both of them vocal now, rocking together, breathing becoming faster, more ragged.

“Mmthe. Mmm,” says Athos. “The. The important, mmh, the _important_ question is: what do you want to do now?”

“No,” responds d’Artagnan, more firmly, pulling back and looking him in the eye, “the _more_ important question is: could you come again, right now, if I took you in my mouth?”

“Er.” They stare at each other, d’Artagnan’s gaze bright and challenging. “I don’t… know…?”

“But you’d be willing to let me try?” His fingers coil around his undeniable hardness.

“Oh, God.”

“That’s a yes,” decides d’Artagnan, and starts kissing his way down Athos’s torso to join his mouth to the rhythm his hand has set up.

“Ah, _yes!_ ”

It’s difficult to say which one of them is more astonished by the heat and strength of his subsequent reaction, but it’s almost certainly Athos.


	5. Single-Handed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may want to read [Castle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14634717) and [Siege](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14695800) before this to get the full gist of it, but I reckon it’s comprehensible by itself.

He sits up slowly, feeling drugged with wine and warmth and something it takes him a while to realise is an absence – he doesn’t need to be prepared to fling himself into a fray, make or follow life-or-death decisions. Nothing more weighty than: how much longer is he staying in this bath until he goes to bed? And: is he having any more wine? He rather thinks he isn’t. More for having it tomorrow than anything more noble.

He stands, wobbling only a little, sees that his comrades have left him a sheet on the floor by the bath, a dry towel, _his_ towel, hanging over the fireplace, and a last saucepan of – probably a bit tepid by now – water to rinse himself off with, should he want it. He feels… yeah, he does feel grateful, but also… this is supposed to be his treat for them, not–

_I’m being an idiot._

Yeah.

Smiling gently at himself, he lifts the pan, pours it slowly over his shoulders, front and back, leaning into the flow each side, planes the worst of it off him and, shaking his leg each time, steps out onto the sheet. A quick reach – careful, boy – and he snags his towel. The house creaks around him and there’s a gentle murmur from upstairs, their weight shifting across floorboards. He smiles broader, dries himself quickly and methodically and, draping his towel over his shoulder, makes for the stairs, candle in hand, starts to mount them softly, to avoid disturbing anyone. If he’s honest, his balance also feels a little suspect – not quite like his body is heavy, exactly, more like the weight of it is unmoored, and he feels like he did whenever he came ashore, sealegs mutinous under him.

Halfway up, he freezes. The murmuring has changed, taken a shift for, well, he’s willing to bet there are fewer words in there, for a start. _Well. I wanted to give them a safe place to fuck each other’s brains out. The price I pay is having to hear it._ He moves swifter now, no longer worried that anyone’s going to be concerned with his movements.

Something like “Oh _God!_ ” comes muffled through the walls and he grins, can’t help it. Not the Captain tonight _at all_.

What about me? What am I tonight?

A horny soldier with a full belly, a door that locks, good walls, and a proper bed.

He thinks this room must have belonged to an unwed, adult relative – size of bed, height of stuff, the lock on the door. Not so much trust there. Then he realises he’s making a story about these people and that’s not him. That’s– Yeah, that’s not him.

He sets the candle on the shelf, sits on the bed. He’s not ready for sleep yet. Not. Not with those faint sounds he’s trying not to strain for, not with this hunger pulsing in him, his blood hot, heavy, swaying in him like…

He doesn’t know why he’s sitting here like this, not when he’s had a very specific plan for the next time he was alone and safe for ages.

He drags his bag closer, glad he pared his nails earlier, when he was more sober and patient both, lays the towel out on top of his random selection of other people’s sheets and blankets, and brings out the oil.

_They need to be comfortable. And already aroused._

Two for two, smartarse.

And yet he finds himself swallowing something like, well, closer to nerves than excitement. Call it _anticipation_ and have done. He coats his fingers liberally with oil, sets the bottle on the floor nearby, reaches down his body.

He’s touched himself there before. Not. Not quite like. Not. And since, a little, but. Mother of God but he _wants_ it, that feeling of… of being opened, then being full. And he’s not had time since, or space. And. And he finds himself pushing, hard, trying…

Shit.

Shit, that hurts. _Shit!_

Fuck.

And the anger that’s all-too ready to his hand these days pushes images into his head of picking up the bottle and hurling it away from him, sees it spill, picks it up again and smacks it at the wall, sees it smash. The pain bleeding into the sides of fists that hammer into the wall, tear these shelves down, pummel the bed then rip it to shreds. It’s like a fever vision – bright and ugly and real.

_What happens next?_

What?

Well, the others hear, they freak out, they run in, no, they batter at the door, demanding to know, demanding.

     Everything smashes.

They’re there.

     Smash.

D’Artagnan all big-eyed and tousled. Athos with his face all straight lines of concern.

Fuck.

     Sma–

Can’t. Can’t disturb ’em. No. Not fair.

Even though he wants their comfort, wants arms around him.

Just for once.

And now the rage is circling deep inside, locked down, got to stay quiet, and it’s hiding all over again, hiding until he grew big, said: fuck all that. But now he’s big he’s got to lock it down deeper, keep from hurting people, until he’s called to, like a good dog, and it spirals inside, burns each surface it touches, hurts _so much_ , and all he wants is to be numb.

And there’s so many ways for a soldier to be numb.

He’s in the tavern with Athos, asking him why, and Athos looks at him, or nearly anyway, sea-eyes all adrift, like he’s some kind of fucking idiot, and he knows he is, right enough, and Athos won’t suffer so much as a hand on his arm when he’s like this, though later Porthos will be practically carrying him home, singing tuneless snatches of what… what someone said were fucking Northern songs, and there’s that one in Latin, made him laugh like a drain though he wouldn’t translate, and before that, at the table, he’s staring at Athos, who’s poisoning himself with a will, bludgeoning himself with cheap wine, saying: why is he hurting himself? and… someone, someone says it’s because he’s hurting already.

That don’t make sense. Cause I guarantee you: if he saw someone else hurting, he’d be kind to them.

Really? Wouldn’t he just let them get on with it? That aristocratic politeness: leave someone alone to bash their own head against the wall, maybe tut at the stain a little afterwards?

Oh, come on.

Mno– not a, anarsto, an anisto, arstio. Not one o’ them. Fuck off.

Touchy, ain’t he? Louder, slower: Yeah, but you’re an arse, mate.

Loudly: You’re fooling no-one, Athos.

Thos. Athos. S’my name.

That’s right.

S’nom de guerre. My – a chest thump – _my_ guerre nom. Nom. Mine.

Oh, fuck this. He heaves him up, while someone prises the goblet off him even as he makes little snatching movements after it. Nope. We’re takin you home, soldier, geddit? We’re gonna be kind to you, coz we ain’t aristos.

No nobles.

Nope. No nobles. Just us. All soldiers here, innit?

Until you can be kind to yourself.

Yeah. That. Come on, Mister Nom de Guerre – let’s have ya.

Do you, er, do you know where he lives?

Fuckit, we’ll take him to the garrison – that’ll do well enough.

Make sure he doesn’t drown in his own vomit.

That a thing?

Believe me, my friend.

…

Friend.

Fucking idiot.

Pair of fucking idiots, and that still hurts, words like a wound that should have healed over by now, like a fucking brand, under the skin where the air can’t get to it, make it clean.

Shit. And he’s all clenched fists, but they’re slippery and…

Wait.

     Shred it, rip it off.

No. Hold on. Wait.

_Be kind to yourself._

Fuck.

And he lets out a shaky laugh at what he sees – a warm bath, candlelight, a soft bed… He needs… and this is fucking ridiculous, but… to _seduce_ himself if he wants to get off like this; God knows he’d never treat another person so roughly.

Fucking. Idiot.

Not so relaxed now, but comfortable. Come on. Safe. Solid walls. Two sets of doors between you and harm, your brothers shouting distance away; just calm yourself, mate, breathe into this.

He breathes slow – in, out; in, out; rolls and stretches his shoulders, then stretches his back, arching against the bed, and it brings him such a rush of physical memory that he gasps, his flagging cock starting to tick upwards again. His hands finds himself warm and hardening, and, as he moves, the oil makes everything…

Bloody hell.

Why has he never thought to use oil on himself like this? Slick and warm and bloody near-perfect. He remembers how it felt: the warm slide of him, slickened by my come. Fuck. That, that shouldn’t have been so hot, but it was, him clinging to my shoulder, panting, me saying… saying…

_come on, come on, you’re so beautiful when you come_

And God help me, but he is. Was.

Fuck. Fuck it.

His left hand keeps smoothing down, and he’s rocking a little into the slow rhythm. Easy. _Easy_. His slick right hand creeps down to cup his balls, and he keeps it light – fingertips stroking, twirling a little, remembers someone’s shocked reaction. Hell, remembers everyone who’d assumed he’d be heavy-handed and their surprised delight when his fingers moved softly over their skin, a hairbreadth above it, raising gooseflesh and writhings, begging – sometimes with words, more often without – him to be firmer. Sees mouths drop open, feels his own do likewise as his hand swirls lower, confident, sharing pleasure with himself for its own sake – all the slow luxury of a holiday, a feast day.

He lets his knuckle nudge, then the pads of his two middle fingers stroke down behind his balls and across his hole, and he realises he’s trying to recreate the incredible sensation of a tongue – firm, soft, wet, warm, flexible – and the memory’s enough to have him groaning.

He bites down on it, stifling behind his lips, listening instinctively for the silence that would mean stretched ears and hears only a duet of muffled, wordless sounds, one much louder than the other. He grins, then starts as they mount up suddenly into a violence of keens and a shriek for all the world like an eagle.

Fucking hell. He has the sudden urge to laugh, and clenches his teeth on it. If he hadn’t witnessed (while cleaning himself up and trying hard not to pay any attention to the writhing bodies on the floor of the clearing) Athos making a very similar sound already, he’d have been hard-pushed to recognise it as either of them, or would have guessed d’Artagnan, though he’s willing to bet that d’Artagnan can be just as – if not more – vocal himself.

That he has no-one to bet with on this but himself is–

Fuck it. And fuck feeling any shame that his brothers’ pleasure is echoing in his own body – he’d surely be turned on by the sound of strangers rutting. Has been, on occasion, once so painfully hard overhearing the couple next door while sharing a bed on that overnight to Givray with… someone, that he’d had to sneak out to the woods behind the inn, lean his back against the tree and relieve himself, head tilted back to the sky, in dappled moonlight. That was, undeniably, the best thing to happen on that mission, by a hundred miles.

Bloody Huguenots.

His fingers know what they’re about, even if his mind’s wandering all over the place, pressing a little firmer on each pass below, keeping his left hand’s movements regular and light on his shaft – enough to keep his interest, not enough to get carried away. He imagines, for a moment, doing this for someone else, though he’d surely start with his tongue. Oh _fuck_ yeah. He can imagine the texture, the heat, the way everything would soften, open up for him, can hear the moans above him, has always loved to do that for a woman – to feel her whole body in motion, rocking around his ears, clasping his neck, hands in his hair, let alone the taste.

“Mmmh.”

And just like that, sharp-sweet dream scent in his nostrils, one finger is circling and oh, that’s nice, and then pressing deeper, him arching up to meet it, claim it, take it into him, Christ, that’s. He imagines anyone telling him he’d like this, of all things, and how he’d’ve laughed a few years ago, and the laugh’s on him, innit, fuck, because this feels, oh, not like someone doing it for him, to him, with him, but yes, it’s nice

“Yeah, y-yeah…”

Because beyond the clutch, beyond the thrill of it being… different, dirty, there’s that magic bit that someone told him about and his own finger, broader, warmer, has found it – smooth and round and

“Oh God”

he thrashes and maybe it’s like pressing on that magic bit inside a woman’s quim and he can’t help but giggle at that into a gasp, and a groan to boot, fuck,

“ _Fuck!_ ”

It’s starting to feel a bit… yeah, dry, maybe? takes something away from it. Next time, I’ll keep the bottle closer to hand. He withdraws, feels his muscles clutch at himself as he goes, gentle, a little strange, like a tiny mouth kissing and kissing, but then he’s getting more oil on himself, spilling some, never mind, and his hands back to work, finger of his right hand deeper now, God.

“Yes. Mmh!”

_And now, with them relaxed, practically begging for more stimulation, you add a little more oil, and ease an extra…_

And with the other finger, now the stretch as well. The heat of it is nibbling at the edges of his control. He’s having to tilt his hips up in order to reach all the way into himself, and he’s starting to feel the burn in the muscles of his lower belly. He’ll feel that tomorrow, he thinks with a touch of smugness as he bends his wrist, pushes harder into himself, rising to meet it. Just like–

Oh God.

“God, shit…”

The burn in his belly is clutching deeper and deeper into his core and he’s remembering when Flea wanted him to make her come quickly in that particular way, showed him the trick of stroking quickly, light and firm flicks with his crooked fingertips over that magical part of her and

“Oh fuck!”

that’s intense but so good and everything’s drawing together, him outright groaning now on every breath, images flickering through and around him – Flea thrusting back, staring at him like the Queen she was going to be, command in every line of her; Alice heaving and gasping under his touch, shivering from even the simplest kisses; then the other Alice, sweet as marchpane, sharp eyes and strong arms; those laughing women in Dungarven, their English only slightly more comprehensible to him than their native tongue, whose blandishments someone had to translate for him, the women insisting on them all sharing the one room, beds pushed together, trading touches, swapping between them until his resistance wore to a paper-thin, crumbling edge. He’d nearly turned, hadn’t he? Hadn’t. Turned into stronger, more familiar arms

“Nnngh!”

Eyes pricking, the fingers of his left hand are buried in the bedding beneath him as he pushes up to meet his fingers over and over and he’s so fucking close, everything drawing tighter, and it’s like press-ups only sweeter and harder and hotter and

“Ah, _yes!_ ” cries Athos in the other room and Porthos tries to laugh but it comes out as more of an answering cry, and he can’t help it at all, imagining someone’s weight and heat on him, and maybe it wouldn’t be fingers inside him but

“Christ _fuck!_ ”

It’s the final undoing of him, everything unspooling, all the edges gone, and in the end he doesn’t need to even touch his cock to have everything clench, and pleasure so intense he loses any words to it claws its way out of him so explosively he finds himself checking the ceiling blearily a little while later when he starts to clean up.

He does worry, for a moment, that the bed will be too distractingly soft after all this time. And then he turns, pulls the rest of the bedding into a heap, wraps arm and leg around it, and drops into oblivion like a soldier, like an orphan child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For full reference in this Muskieverse/ spoilers for earlier works in this series: in [Castle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14634717), Porthos reveals that he gets [coregasms](https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/coregasm) when doing press-ups, and in [Siege](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14695800) he and Aramis get together for what turns out to be an extremely athletic and far-ranging one-night-stand, inspired/ prompted by a) them tricking d’Artagnan and Athos into revealing the full nature of their relationship, b) Aramis heading off to the monastery the following day.


	6. Entangled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _An interesting awakening_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations available on hover-over and in the end notes; small reference to/ spoiler for earlier work [Vantage Point](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13730742), but it’s not necessary to read that to understand this.

D’Artagnan wakes slowly, gradually becoming aware of his surroundings. The sun is bright through his closed eyelids; he hasn’t slept this late in a very long time. He grins, heaves a deep breath, rolls the back of his head into the pillow behind him, feels the way his body is supported by a real-life, honest-to-God mattress. He feels a moment of something like guilt for being spreadeagled across it, then reckons that, if Athos was vexed by that, he’d have done something about it.

The thought of Athos draws his attention further down his body, where an unanswered heaviness twitches. It’s entirely his own fault – Athos coming again that hard after the emotional overload of previously; he was bound to drop into deep sleep… Feeling, mmmh, a little smug, if he’s honest, he stretches his back with another grin as he casually reaches to touch himself, and–

His eyes snap open. He blinks at the ceiling, consternation dropping through his sunny expression as he tries to move his right arm. He can’t. Nor his left or either of his legs. His head swings wildly from left to right and back again.

Somehow he’s failed to notice until now that he’s been tied to the bed.

Shit. _Shit!_ Of _course_ an intact, abandoned hamlet was too good to be true! His head cranes up as high as it can and he begins to scan the room.

“Good morning.”

His head drops back on the pillow. “Ah.”

A small chuckle.

“How long have I…?”

“You slept remarkably deeply.”

“You don’t say.”

“Hmm.” Athos moves into view. He looks amused and relaxed, but there’s something like a searching air to him.

Ah. Time for some reassurance.

He slants a cocky grin up at him. “Good job I relieved myself earlier…” An outhouse feeling like outrageous luxury in the pre-dawn murk.

“Indeed. I remember.”

Of course he does. “And good of you to cover me with the sheet.”

“Well, the door doesn’t lock.”

“I remember.” They look at each other a long moment, the light in their eyes sobering into something else. “Don’t you want to see your handiwork?”

“Oh, very much so.” He smiles more broadly, reaches, and peels back the sheet. D’Artagnan feels his own breath stutter at the way Athos’s eyes, darkening, rove over him. The expression on his face is something he’d call _possessive_ , if he were ordered to name it. He feels himself swell further towards it, tugs reflexively at his bonds, hears himself moan lightly when it becomes clear how well Athos has him constrained. He reaches on a twist of wrist to curl his fingers around the cord, confirm by touch that yes, this is Constance’s gift; soft and strong, densely layered, smooth to the touch but barely yielding.

Athos, shirt billowing, smiles, shifts to perch companionably at the foot of the bed between d’Artagnan’s feet, one bare knee pulled up onto the mattress so that he can slew around, look d’Artagnan over with a slant of pure calculation.

D’Artagnan feels a rush of pleasant trepidation shudder through him. Athos shows that he’s seen this with a quirk of lip.

“Now,” he says, voice pleasantly neutral, heading for, but not quite at, the drawl that strokes d’Artagnan everywhere, “do you remember what I said last night?”

D’Artagnan pulls a considering kind of face. “‘Oh _God_ , d’Artagnan, _yes!_ ’? Ooh, no, wait: ‘Ah, fuck, your, you… oh, _fuck!_ Your _tongue!_ ’? No? How about: ‘I ca–ca–, oh _Christ_ , I _can’t_ –!’ I don’t think much of the rest of that was words, though, so…”

Athos’s eyebrow is tented, his eyes are hooded, and d’Artagnan knows _exactly_ what that look means.

“I’m in so much trouble.”

“That you are,” agrees Athos. He cocks his head, considering him, sober. “Are you able to click your fingers from that position?”

D’Artagnan blinks, looks over to his right hand, snaps twice smartly. He turns back to regard Athos who smiles, dark and intent, and says: “Good.”

D’Artagnan swallows.

“Comfortable?”

“Oddly, yes.” Athos raises an eyebrow, and he makes the decision to let go, there and then – slip off mouthy, cocky d’Artagnan, sink into the one whose weight will be taken by his lover. And, for once, he’s thinking about how it’s probable that Athos himself needs something of the commanding role, after the surrender of the previous night. He sees Athos witnessing the moment when it happens, feels sincerity flow through him, says: “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” A small slip of a smile. “Now, there’s a little give – not much, but enough to allow certain movement, given your _general flexibility_.” Somehow, he makes that sound filthy. Clearly, to Athos, it is. Interesting. Something to be stored away for later…

Then calculation starts to slide out of his head as Athos runs a possessive palm up his calf, eyes running higher up his body slowly, and, as he moistens his lips, d’Artagnan reflexively bites the inside of his own gently.

Of course Athos sees that. He sees everything. He runs his hand back down his leg and stands, turning to face him fully, and d’Artagnan realises, all of a sudden, that what he’s been doing by talking and moving is distracting him while he comes up with the next part of this.

He tamps down the urge to wriggle at his own cleverness.

Athos surveys him calmly, and he wonders, with a little alarm, how much of this he’s observed. “What _shall_ we do with you, d’Artagnan?”

“What would you like to do with me?”

“Oh, there are so many things. You’re laid out for me like a feast, ready to devour.”

That shouldn’t be so erotic, it really shouldn’t, but it’s Athos, and the way his voice caresses the words, the way his gaze caresses his body, it has him tightening his hands on the bonds, and he feels himself harden a little further under those Northern eyes.

“I could do anything I want with you.” He pauses, smile a little cool. His head cocks to one side. “Even leave you here while I go hunting with Porthos, maybe, or sit beside the window and read my book for a while.” D’Artagnan fights a whimper. Athos steps back, leans back beside the window, cups himself through the linen of his shirt, and he can see that he’s hard, just from looking, talking. His hand strokes slowly down the length of his shaft, head rocking back a little. “In Orléans,” he says, conversationally enough, his voice deepening as his hand takes another languid stroke, “before you arrived, I imagined you watching me as I took my pleasure, never realising you were waiting to ambush me. I imagined your gaze, hot and hard on me as I gripped myself…” his hand tightens into the downstroke, his voice dips and creaks a little, “fingers warm with the summer heat, slippery with soap and hot water, nothing to do but, mmh, but please myself until supper.” His hand reaches underneath his shirt and d’Artagnan’s throat tightens.

“On the riverbank yesterday, I remembered; imagined you, hot from your bath, hard against me…” he tails off into a little sigh, head going back against the wall, eyes closing, hand working – still slow, smooth, luxuriant.

“And you,” he clears his throat, “you touched yourself then?”

He smiles. “No. But I wanted to. Imagined your mouth on me, your body’s heat around me; conjured the sounds you’d make, the way you’d quiver against me. I wanted to hear you cry out.” He smiles, a little rueful. “I doused my arousal in cold water and then you ambushed me again.”

“Ah.” He smiles, a little awkwardly. “Sorry…?”

“No apology required. Now I get to carry out my designs with daylight gilding your beauty instead of firelight. It’s a good exchange.” D’Artagnan’s breath catches. Somehow, being called _beautiful_ is, is so…

Athos’s head comes forward and his hand comes off himself. He starts to, very slowly, with every evidence of appetite, lick his juices from his hand as he looks d’Artagnan over with an expression somewhere between hunger and something proprietary, nearly scornful. On anyone else, it would just make d’Artagnan’s fingers twitch and every wall go up, polite smile slammed into place. On Athos, it makes his heart race and his guts twist. He wants to twist with them, refuses to let go that much. Not until he’s…

Not yet.

“So what next?” muses Athos, dropping his hand, stepping a little closer.

“What do you want?” d’Artagnan finds himself asking again, hears the slight tremor in it, wishes it away.

“I want to take you to pieces, slowly, until you’re utterly adrift in bliss, and all you can say with any clarity is my name.”

“Dear God and Mother of God,” he croaks.

“I take it the general thrust of this meets with your approval?”

He nods hurriedly.

“Well now.” He smiles, and d’Artagnan knows that his plan is now fully constructed. Oh God. “We’ve talked a couple of times in passing about the effect my voice has on you…”

“Oh,” say d’Artagnan, feeling himself unaccountably blushing. He swallows. “Yes, we have.”

“Well then, let’s see what we can do with that.” Athos clears his throat, gently, and starts to speak:

“ _Dignane, cui grates ageret, cui turis honorem_  
“ _ferret, Adoni, fui? nec grates inmemor egit…_ ”

He doesn’t declaim, barely gestures, but speaks intently, unhurriedly, seemingly enjoying the texture of the words.

“ _nec mihi tura dedit. subitam convertor in iram_ ,  
“ _contemptuque dolens, ne sim spernenda futuris,_  
“ _exemplo caveo meque ipsa exhortor in ambos…_ ”

It rolls like distant thunder around his mouth. D’Artagnan finds himself breathless and warm, and then worried.

“ _templa, deum Matri quae quondam clarus Echion_  
“ _fecerat ex voto, nemorosis abdita silvis,_  
“ _transibant, et iter longum requiescere suasit…_ ”

“Athos?”

“Ita?” He smiles lazily at him.

“Um, is that…? What does that mean?”

Athos’s lips quirk. “It’s not religious, if that’s what you’re worried about. Not Christian, anyway.”

“Um. Good. Okay.”

He smiles darkly at him, reaches to rub his thumb along the arch of d’Artagnan’s foot, firmly enough so that it’s more massage than tickle.

“ _illic concubitus intempestiva cupido_  
“ _occupat Hippomenen a numine concita nostro_.  
“ _luminis exigui fuerat prope templa recessus_ ,  
“ _speluncae similis, nativo pumice tectus_ ,” and he leans to plant a kiss on his calf. D’Artagnan breathes out hard through his nose.

“ _religione sacer prisca, quo multa sacerdos_ ,” and a kiss to the other calf.

“ _lignea contulerat veterum simulacra deorum_ ;” and fingers run up his thigh. D’Artagnan clenches his teeth. He appears to be wildly sensitive already, tingles running everywhere from every point he’s being touched, can feel where he’s dripping a stream of arousal onto his belly, arm twitching involuntarily to bring his hand to – if not his prick, then to that small pool, to bring it to his mouth, to taste. Coming up short against the cord sends a delicious shock through his body.

“ _hunc init et vetito temerat sacraria probro_.” Fingers run down the other thigh, rippling slightly. Oh God, he hopes Athos will let him taste his arousal, feel his heat sliding between his lips.

“ _sacra retorserunt oculos, turritaque Mater_ ” and d’Artagnan’s eyes stutter as Athos’s breath brushes over where his fingers passed and–

“ _an Stygia sontes dubitavit mergeret unda…_ ” he leans closer, his voice deepening, the pattern of breath beating against his skin like kisses, and d’Artagnan is trying; he’s trying really hard not to arch towards his lips, knowing that Athos will delay the moment of contact even longer if he does.

He feels more than hears the thread of sound trickle from his own throat as Athos’s breath progresses up to wash against his balls, the base of his cock, his voice winding in stuttered harmony with “ _poena levis visa est; ergo modo levia fulvae_ ” and God it’s _so good_.

“ _colla iubae velant, digiti curvantur in ungues_ ,” and a tongue tip curves to not-quite touch his skin and his belly tightens to lock his hips down, but he makes a sound like “huh,” high and, oh God, definitely desperate. Athos’s mouth quirks.

“ _ex umeris armi fiunt, in pectora totum_ ” and Athos brings his arms forward to either side of d’Artagnan’s body so that he can pull himself further up, towards his chest; the trailing edge of his shirt is a gentle torture against his flesh, everything tightening where his breath washes over him.

“ _pondus abit, summae cauda verruntur harenae_ ;” and d’Artagnan feels the prickle of his beard on his belly, but nothing else, closes his eyes because it’s all becoming a bit too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #### Notes
> 
> This scene has to be split, else it’ll be a monster of a chapter and you’ll have to wait even longer – already it’s nearly the length of [Keep Your Enemies Close](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13679385) and it’s not even finished! So apologies for the cliffhanger, but take comfort in the notion that it’ll be updated sooner than usual…  
> (Yeah, this wee time out for the lads is getting looong.)
> 
> #### Latin translation
> 
> Okay, so here’s the thing – I wanted to put in a passage in Latin that had resonance for Athos (he’ll explain later, or you can click [here](http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/ovid/ovid.met10.shtml) and scroll down a bit), and Google Translate sucks for Latin. So the only thing I could do was find an English translation online, and the one I found was [more concerned with making it rhyme](http://classics.mit.edu/Ovid/metam.10.tenth.html) than making a more direct translation. 😒 I’ve done my best to match Athos’s phrases with the English translation, and have had to take liberties with the ordering of the latter when providing meaning. _Please let me know if there’s a better way of doing this!_
> 
>  _“Dignane, cui grates ageret, cui turis honorem/ ferret, Adoni, fui? nec grates inmemor egit…”_ = “Might I, Adonis, now not hope to see/ His grateful thanks pour’d out for victory?”
> 
>  _“nec mihi tura dedit. subitam convertor in iram,/ contemptuque dolens, ne sim spernenda futuris,/ exemplo caveo meque ipsa exhortor in ambos…”_ = “His pious incense on my altars laid?/ But he nor grateful thanks, nor incense paid./ Enrag’d I vow’d, that with the youth the fair,/ For his contempt, should my keen vengeance share;/ That future lovers might my pow’r revere…”
> 
>  _“templa, deum Matri quae quondam clarus Echion/ fecerat ex voto, nemorosis abdita silvis,/ transibant, et iter longum requiescere suasit…”_ = “And, from their sad examples, learn to fear./ The silent fanes, the sanctify’d abodes,/ Of Cybele, great mother of the Gods,/ Rais’d by Echion in a lonely wood...”
> 
> “Ita?” = “Yes?”
> 
>  _“illic concubitus intempestiva cupido/ occupat Hippomenen a numine concita nostro./ luminis exigui fuerat prope templa recessus,/ speluncae similis, nativo pumice tectus,”_ = “And full of brown, religious horror stood./ By a long painful journey faint, they chose!/ Their weary limbs here secret to repose./ But soon my pow’r inflam’d the lustful boy,/ Careless of rest he sought untimely joy./ A hallow’d gloomy cave, with moss o’er-grown,/ The temple join’d, of native pumice-stone,/ Thither the rash Hippomenes retires,/ And gives a loose to all his wild desires”
> 
>  _“religione sacer prisca, quo multa sacerdos”_ = “Where antique images by priests were kept”
> 
>  _“lignea contulerat veterum simulacra deorum”_ = “And wooden deities securely slept”
> 
>  _“hunc init et vetito temerat sacraria probro.”_ = “[Hippomenes] the chaste cell pollutes with wanton fires”
> 
>  _“sacra retorserunt oculos, turritaque Mater”_ = “The sacred statues trembled with surprize,/ The tow’ry Goddess, blushing, veil’d her eyes”
> 
>  _“an Stygia sontes dubitavit mergeret unda…”_ = “And the lewd pair to Stygian sounds had sent/ But unrevengeful seem’d that punishment…”
> 
>  _“poena levis visa est; ergo modo levia fulvae”_ = “A heavier doom such black prophaneness [profanity but made to scan?!] draws”
> 
>  _“colla iubae velant, digiti curvantur in ungues”_ = “Their taper figures [tapered fingers?!] turn to crooked paws.”
> 
>  _“ex umeris armi fiunt, in pectora totum”_ = “Arms change to legs: each finds the hard’ning breast”
> 
>  _“pondus abit, summae cauda verruntur harenae”_ = “No more their necks the smoothness can retain,/ “Now cover’d sudden with a yellow mane.”
> 
> In short: don’t fuck with goddesses (or in their shrines unless they’re specifically down for that).


	7. Binding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations available on hover-over and in the end notes (with thanks to [cutemuffintooth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutemuffintooth) for taking pity on my plea in an online forum for a decent translation when Google Translate was giving me utter nonsense).

“ _iram vultus habet, pro verbis murmura reddunt…_ ”

“Athos, please…”

“Domemne vocis tuae? Vinciantne cum verbum lingua tuae?” His tone is conversational, a pleasant query.

He opens his eyes to stare at him, feeling a little wild. Athos’s gaze is bright and hot, with a slant to it that tells him that he is being teased further, and, before he can help himself, d’Artagnan writhes against the bed, though he manages to blurt out “What d–?”

Athos reaches up to put a finger against d’Artagnan’s lips with an enquiring kind of look. He shakes his head emphatically: _too much_ , turns out there’s limit to how constrained he can be and still stand it, and Athos’s face immediately softens in understanding and care.

God, so much care. He feels himself melting under its warmth, dissolving in it, something like despair washing over him, everything overwhelming him suddenly.

Athos catches and holds his gaze with another questioning one of his own and clicks his fingers once. D’Artagnan nods. Then clicks his fingers twice.

Athos gives a single nod upwards, face very neutral, makes to pull away, then his expression changes as d’Artagnan feels desperation cascade through him and instead lowers his weight slowly, alert to any shift in his lover’s body, closes warm and still on him, and it’s perfect, that’s perfect.

“Athos, will you– Can you kiss me? _Please?_ ”

“Of course,” and he shifts again, lips as gentle and firm as d’Artagnan has ever felt them, and his eyes prick, which is ridiculous, isn’t it? But he’s returning the kiss, and his arousal is abruptly mounting again, moaning into Athos’s mouth, who moans in return, their kiss deepening, accelerating, Athos’s tongue writhing against his and, as he bucks upwards, Athos sits up, thighs straddling him, and tears off his shirt to throw it, then returns to run the backs of his fingernails gently along the exposed underside of d’Artagnan’s arms. D’Artagnan groans at that, more animal than man, and he’s stiffening even further under his lover’s warm weight.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No, please!”

“Do you want me to release you?”

“No. No!”

“And you’re enjoying this? Truly?”

“Oh God, yes! _Please!_ ”

“Please what, d’Artagnan?”

“Hah! I don’t– don’t even know.” He writhes. He’s suddenly very aware of Athos astride him, knees either side of his torso, and how much he wants to just rut up into the flesh above him, if Athos will only give him permission. Athos is looking down at him through a fall of hair, eyes bright, and then he settles himself, pushing his hair back, wriggling down a little onto him, and brings his hand to himself.

Jesu, no. He _wouldn’t_.

He is. Rocking slightly up into his hand as he strokes himself, which means, of course, rocking slightly over the head of d’Artagnan’s cock. D’Artagnan makes a sound that’s something like a growl, edging onto a full-blown whine, and then, as Athos throws his head back and accelerates, he’s envisaging the splash of Athos’s spend over his chest, maybe as far as his chin, and he moans, lets his head fall back, eyes closing, exposing his throat to whatever comes next.

Athos pants, his thighs gripping his flanks, hot everywhere he’s touching him. Ragged moans escape his throat through what sounds like gritted teeth. He’s surely close.

D’Artagnan waits, pulling, if he knew it, against all his bonds.

Fingertips sweep down his throat from the hinge of his jaw, stroke to his right nipple and roll it, just slightly. Summer lightning crackles across his skin and into his crotch, then the other nipple is being twisted, harder. A shift above him and he opens his eyes to see Athos ducking to mouth over his chest, feels his unspent hardness push against him, drag down his body as Athos manoeuvres over his outstretched thighs. He moans, loud enough to startle himself, but can’t seem to stop as lips and tongue and – _fuck!_ – and teeth travel across his flesh, accompanied by sounds of untrammelled appetite. His eyes close again as fingers dig into his flank on one side, grip his hair from the other, then rake down his body; his hips are pumping, he can’t seem to stop them.

A tongue trails down him, all the way from where it’s been swirling over his nipple again, down chest and belly to the base of his cock, where it switches direction and washes up over his hardness and he cries out, wants it, wants that soft, consuming wetness.

“Please. _Please!_ ”

“Since you ask so nicely,” says that terrible mouth, and it’s closing over him as he screws his whole face up, clenches everything to stay still as it descends, enveloping, so slowly, and how can he bear it, how? And he knows what’s going to happen – Athos is going to take him right to the brink and stop. Or switch. Or ask questions. Or… Or…

“You’re still thinking,” says Athos, as he withdraws, very gently, laying his aching cock down on his belly like it’s something incredibly precious. “We can’t have that…” He moves down further, starts to lay his tongue over his balls.

“Mmmh!”

“You like that?”

“Oh God, yes.”

“Me too. Something else I like…” He moves away entirely and d’Artagnan lifts his head to see him fiddling with first one then the other length of cord binding his ankles, and he gapes in astonishment as each slackens, while still tied fast to the bedpost. Athos has built in a means to alter the length, and he’d be laughing if he wasn’t having his thighs lifted so that Athos can slot his shoulders underneath and his tongue can drive between his cheeks and start laying stroke after stroke over his hole.

The extra slack to move in means that d’Artagnan has room to rock now, and – for want of being forbidden it – does so, moaning loudly, wondering at himself until he realises how long it’s been since– how long. God.

“Please, Athos.”

“What now?” His voice is remarkably cool – d’Artagnan feels somewhat stunned at this, scrambles to collect his words.

“I want. Please…”

“Hmm?”

“I, oh God, mmh, I want to taste you. Please. Please?”

“Hungry are you?”

“Mmh, please…”

“Even after last night?”

“Yes. Please, Athos.”

“I might have known it would take more than that to give you your fill…” and he rises with a wicked glint, retightening the clever ties so that d’Artagnan can buck a little but barely more than an inch or so. He also runs his fingers quickly around his ankles, at the place where the cord holds him, lays a kiss on each one.

“Is it, er, is–?”

Athos smiles, a little distantly. “It seems fine for now. Some people may relish rope burns. Without more information, I assumed that the constraint was more the thing for you.”

Again, it shouldn’t be erotic (should it?), but the care combined with the clinical, and all in that drawl that strokes and clutches him…

“Mmmh.”

A chuckle. “Good. Now, let’s see.” He kneels up beside d’Artagnan. “There isn’t much room, so if you want me to feed you my cock…” d’Artagnan groans, feels heat flash through him at these words, “we’ll have to be clever about it.” A quirk of eyebrow, and a quick crawl up the bed. He turns to face down it, knees straddling either side of d’Artagnan’s head as he sits back on his heels. He looks down and chuckles again as d’Artagnan immediately begins to crane his head back, growling with frustration and twisting to lick and mouth at his thighs.

Athos makes an “Ah!” of want, a sharp contrast with everything that’s gone before, and d’Artagnan bares his teeth against his skin, hears him hiss.

“Christ, you’re hungry. Let’s see what we can do about that…” And there’s a breathlessness underlying the drawl that some part of d’Artagnan absolutely revels in, while the rest is begging Athos to master them both again.

Athos drops to his hands and walks them down the bed, either side of d’Artagnan’s body, swoops so low to him that he can feel his hair trail along his increasingly sensitive skin, but holds his hips so high that d’Artagnan still… can’t… quite… fucking… _reach…!_

It’s a surreally beautiful sight – his cock so close to him, at such an angle, flushed, hard, surely aching to be suckled deep into d’Artagnan’s mouth and throat, God, please.

“Please!”

“Mmmh. You really want this, don’t you?”

“Yes. Yes!” He strains again, nigh-on snarling.

“Say it.”

“I want your cock,” he says, immediately, though his voice is blurred as though drunk. Nothing elaborate is going to get through the vine tangle of words and tongue. “Please. To taste it, to feel… Oh…”

With great care, Athos is lowering himself, reaching down to gently guide himself in, groaning as his lips and tongue begin to caress him. This, oh this, always and again this.

More is blurring, and words are leaving him; the delineation between want and have, mind and body, fear and trust are fading as Athos rocks with infinite care into his mouth, and he tips back his throat to accommodate him that touch deeper, with the smallest ripple of fear (delicious, dismissed) that he won’t be able to do this without choking. Athos groans, strokes his hand once up his thigh, and then his cock into his throat, over and over, never too deep, a gentle, steady pace he can predict and breathe around. And he’s taken by that pace, that care, humming into it, feeling his body ripple with each move, and it’s dance and fire and water and love that encases this heat, this rhythm, this caress of voice and taste and Athos is speaking again; beautiful, incomprehensible words to the rhythm of their exchange:

“ _pro thalamis celebrant silvas aliisque timendi_ __  
_“dente premunt domito Cybeleia frena leones._ __  
_“hos tu, care mihi, cumque his genus omne ferarum,_ _  
__“quod non terga fugae, sed pugnae pectora praebet,_ _  
__“effuge, ne virtus tua sit damnosa duobus!_ ”

On it goes. They are summer and bed and muscle and blood heat and love; cords and chords and moans and rocking, Athos’s mouth on him, on… oh, oh, oh yes, oh… _oh…!_

“Steady,” and he withdraws a little at both ends, summoning a mewl from d’Artagnan’s throat, “Any more of that and I won’t be able to fuck you.”

“Oh! Oh, please!”

A chuckle, sunlight on water, “I was going to ask, but I don’t think I need to now.”

“Fuck me,” he says, faint even to his own ears. “Fuck…” D’Artagnan is aware that his whole body is undulating, and he pulls at his restraints, arching against them, then falling again.

He hears Athos’s breath go in, hears him mutter “Dear God,” as he pulls back further and drops to the floor, then loses track of him as he rummages, enjoying the lazy, rhythmic flow of his own anatomy.

With a gratified sound and an accompanying clink, love returns, hands busy on his bonds, stroking his legs and ankles, setting him free, and it’s almost sad to no longer be constrained there, but there are kisses, love’s lips caressing feet, ankles, calves, thighs, and he’s rolling towards him, leaning into the hold that remains on his wrists, trying to speak with muscle and bone, hardness and softness, and there’s a tongue, augh, a tongue curving over his balls and below and he is rocking towards that mouth, breath speaking at the back of his throat, and Athos,

“Athos, Athos.”

“Yes, my love?”

“Love. Love.”

“Yes. Love.” And his voice sounds different – heavier? There are more edges in it, he thinks.

“Athos?”

“Yes?”

“You… okay?” His voice is wandering, high and happy.

“Mmh? Um. Actually. This is a bit. You’re. Mmh.” A shuffle, an opening up of space. Two sounds, sharp and measured as a clock, stone on stone.

Oh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: not an expert in rope tying, by any means!
> 
> #### Latin Translations
> 
> (See [previous chapter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17120915/chapters/40959293) re: source of quoted poetry and its imperfect translation.)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> “ _iram vultus habet, pro verbis murmura reddunt…_ ” = “They haunt the woods: their voices, which before/ Were musically sweet, now hoarsely roar.”
> 
> “ _Domemne vocis tuae? Vinciantne cum verbum lingua tuae?_ ” = “Should I constrain your voice? Bind your tongue with words?” (with thanks to [cutemuffintooth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutemuffintooth) for taking pity on my plea in an online forum for a decent translation when Google Translate was giving me utter nonsense). 
> 
> “ _pro thalamis celebrant silvas aliisque timendi/ dente premunt domito Cybeleia frena leones./ hos tu, care mihi, cumque his genus omne ferarum,/ quod non terga fugae, sed pugnae pectora praebet,/ effuge, ne virtus tua sit damnosa duobus!_ ” = “Hence lions, dreadful to the lab’ring swains,/ Are tam’d by Cybele, and curb’d with reins,/ And humbly draw her car along the plains./ But thou, Adonis, my delightful care,/ Of these, and beasts, as fierce as these, beware!”


	8. Familiar

“Just. I’m finding this a little difficult. All right?” A pause. “Okay?”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“No. Christ, no.” The world dips, a firm hand runs down his flank, anchoring him. “I told you before – no apologies.”

“No… No.”

“Are you…” He swallows. “How are you?” And he sighs, sharp with frustration as d’Artagnan laughs and laughs.

“So _formal!_ ” and heads off into another round of laughter.

“Yes, yes…” on a descending note, and afterwards, d’Artagnan would swear blind he mutters something like: “Fucking _Aramis_ would know what to do right now…”

Whatever the details of it, that name stands alone, acts like a shock, a slap of unaccustomed syllables, mired in despair. Edges coalesce around and through him and he’s moving again, but the world is… different.

“Athos?”

And there must be something in his tone, because his lover’s head snaps around to his, as he sits on the edge of the bed, slumped somewhat, and he laughs a little again – a short bark of it, which brings a tangle of query to Athos’s brows.

“You look…” and it turns out other words are still a bit fuzzy, so he clears his throat, smiles, tries again: “You look like a _really_ inappropriate physician.”

“Wh– hah!” and Athos is sharpening under his gaze as well, returning – though _to_ or _from_ is still the debate, as ever. And he sharpens still further, saying: “Are you back, then?”

He sighs, because the world has edges again, but one of those edges is his lover’s mouth, another his winter-bright eyes, another the hand on his flank. He smiles, all mischief, and Athos’s breath catches. “Come and find out.”

Athos’s weight on him is as exquisite as ever, coupled with the constraint of his arms. But now his lower body is free, he is able to push back into Athos, who, after a slow start of kisses, is grinding against him with a mounting fervour, breath hot, wet, and loud against his neck. And d’Artagnan remembers something about _flexibility_ , lifts and wraps his legs around his lover’s waist, who groans from somewhere deep in his chest, redoubles his thrusts.

“Athos?”

“Hmm? Yes?”

“Will you mmplease fuck me? _Nnh!_ Please? I– I want to feel you in me. It’s, unh, been so long…”

“So fucking long,” he mutters, teeth gritted.

“Yes.”

“Oh God, yes.” D’Artagnan can feel him making a concerted effort to stop rocking. “You’ll need to let go of me.”

He feels a spurt of pure mischief: “Ask nicely.”

“Ohhh…” He raises himself slowly on his hands, pushing against the force of d’Artagnan’s legs, locked at the ankles. “I see…”

He smirks back.

Athos takes a deep breath, is visibly controlling his emotions. His voice, when it comes, is, of course, a modulation of the drawl that turns d’Artagnan’s bones to water as he holds his gaze with his sea-lit eyes: “My _dear_ d’Artagnan, I should be _very grateful_ ,” on a slow, twisting roll of his hips for every emphasis, “if you could see your way to _releasing_ me. I would be _far_ more apt to _accede_ to your request.”

“And if I don’t?”

“It’ll take a small _shift_ from me to _thrust_ into you _dry_.” D’Artagnan gasps, hot and cold all through. “I dare swear I could last a _fair while_ , having already climaxed _twice_ quite _recently_ , leaving you unable to _walk_ for a day, or _ride_ for a _week_.”

“You wouldn’t…”

“No,” he says, mildly, “I wouldn’t. But then that would get _neither_ of us _fucked_ , which seems like quite the waste,” all still in that princely tone that makes him sound almost bored.

For a moment, d’Artagnan tries to entertain the notion of the Athos he first knew – even the Athos he’d first started this affair with – using such language, and has to swallow his laughter. He tries to shift his features into something approaching contrition as he unhitches his legs from about his lover, sets them to the bed, knows he’s failed by the slant of loving amusement on Athos’s face.

The older man dives at once to lap at him, pushing his legs up and back again, and he feels the delicious shame of this exposure writhe through him. Athos attacks him with his tongue, diving deep as he spreads him and d’Artagnan moans, loud and shameless, his constraint properly irking him for the first time since this began, as he wants to clutch his own knees to his chest, and this reliance on Athos’s strength is… is…

“Ohhh!” comes a rising note from his own throat. Athos’s licks get longer in response, swiping up and over his balls, lingering at the base of his cock before returning to lavish attention on his hole. There’s a tingling at the base of his spine, and all he wants is Athos inside him, as soon as possible.

“Hmm?”

He’s clearly said some of this aloud, takes a breath and finds himself groaning: “Please. I want you inside me. _Please?_ ”

“So greedy,” Athos mock-admonishes, still muffled by d’Artagnan’s flesh. He lavishes another couple of long strokes against him, then reaches back for the oil.

Jesu, it’s been such a long time – d’Artagnan has fallen out of the habit of this, so the first finger is gasping tight until he catches the trick of opening to his lover again. And Athos, despite clearly being the aching side of aroused, is as patient as ever, easing into him; twisting slowly over that point of pleasure he’s not felt in forever; laying his tongue against him in more of those long, sure strokes; murmuring how much he loves to see him like this – legs splayed, colour high, all the long lines of his body flung back in elegant curves, the sound and scent of his desire billowing out of him, the heat inside him. He strokes his belly, flank, thigh with his free hand, lends gently biting kisses to the inside of his thighs, all the while still murmuring filthy endearments until d’Artagnan is somewhat adrift again, two fingers thrusting and beckoning inside him now, pulling gasps and moans from him until he thinks he’ll go mad from it.

“Oh now, now, _please!_ ” and there’s the gloriously obscene sound of Athos slicking his cock. He peers down to see him, jaw clenched around his pleasure as he works the oil down himself, fingers still inside him to the hilt, moving gently.

“One moment,” and he’s clearly missed something, because Athos is pulling out of him and stretching up the bed for a pillow, which he lifts d’Artagnan’s hips to slide beneath. But then he’s slotting himself between his legs, and the pleasure, the anticipation, the loneliness, the heat, the oh, the burn, oh God, _God_ , it all blends… it’s love and completion and God, so full, God.

“All right?” asks Athos, panting only slightly, balanced on his arms above him, and they’ve never, never like this, and d’Artagnan is staring up at him, full heart, emptying head, full… oh Jesu, he can’t stop envisaging, really thinking about it for once, and it’s ridiculous, suddenly, and he means to ask Athos to pause for a minute, but he’s also rocking towards him like he can’t help himself.

Athos is frowning. “Are you sure? It’s been… I mean: this is very tight and…” lust is fraying the edges of his words, his voice, and d’Artagnan does the only thing he can, which is to lift his legs and pull Athos to him, ankles crossing, heels ushering him closer.

Athos groans as he’s pulled further in, oh _Christ!_ , pushes the last part himself until he’s balls deep. “Oh, fuck me!” groans d’Artagnan. “ _Fuck_ me!”

“I am,” edging on a chuckle, and something else.

“No,” and for a moment he’s all sharp, the words a little garbled on the way, “you’re only _in_ me. I– I want…”

Athos’s hand comes up, seizes him by the hair and pulls. He snarls: “Really? You _want?_ ”

“Y-Yes! Yes, _please!_ ”

Athos tugs on his hair again, and rolls his hips. Then he drops back to two hands, pulls back a little, and circles as he moves in and out again. Another pass, a little further back before circling through him, and this time it’s like a punch to the guts as the head of his cock hits that special place in him. He makes a sound somewhere between a yelp and a moan, and Athos does it again. And again. And now he’s varying force and speed as he does it over and over until d’Artagnan can barely breathe for the pleasure, winding his hands around his bonds and pulling hard to feel the texture across his palms as he pants and rocks up to him as best he can.

Athos shifts to lean on his elbows, stretches to kiss him, and it’s a mess – d’Artagnan can barely do more than scrabble lips and tongue at him between open-mouthed gasps and cries, and he knows he’s getting louder, but can’t– can’t stop, fuck, fuck…

“ _Fuck!_ ” Athos’s hips are relentless, the friction of his belly against him impossibly good. “Oh! Oh! Athos! _Athos!_ ” and his lover finally loses his restraint and starts to pump hard and fast into him.

Everything swells and holds right at the edge of his endurance until he feels that familiar charge that runs right through the whole of his body. He feels Athos’s rhythm stutter as he clenches about him, hears him grunt something like a curse through the ringing in his ears and feels that beautiful, obscenely hot rush of his lover spilling into him.

For a warm, close, gorgeous age, his weight stays on him until his breathing evens out, and, after a while, d’Artagnan can’t help but notice that his hips are cramping and his cock is still hard and… and…

Athos raises his head to look him in the eyes, kisses him, and he… he really wants his hands free now, to hold him close, run his fingers over his back, but… he has to let him recover, he–

Why is he still so achingly aroused? He unhooks his ankles, puts his feet to the mattress, and that makes it worse, if anything; he starts to rock a little towards Athos, who makes a surprised noise into his mouth, raises himself up and looks down their bodies, then back up at d’Artagnan in something like incredulity.

“Athos?”

“Er, yes?”

“Um, could I have my hands free, please?”

“Oh, of course! I–” he pushes himself up, and d’Artagnan can feel his arms tremble for a moment until he locks them. The pulling out is as strange, but uncomfortable in a different way from normal. The final slide is a relief, and Athos rolls himself awkwardly away to fumble somewhat at his ties, kissing each wrist as he frees it. Then, to his astonishment, Athos is returning to between his thighs, and, before d’Artagnan can say a single thing, is taking him into his mouth.

He arches towards him, wildly sensitive and alive with arousal, runs his hands down his own straining torso, finds it slick only with sweat, threads his fingers into Athos’s hair. He’s rocking and moaning, loud again, then Athos shifts his weight and gently pushes his fingers inside him, and he’s roaring, fingers digging into Athos’s shoulder and clawing at the sheets, the twin sensations of mouth and hand undoing him in a shockingly short space of time, and this time the climax is so much greater – consuming every scrap of his being, ripping through him on an explosion of ecstasy, and hurling him to the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter of this scene to go, then maybe a couple more in this work – some talkiness to follow.
> 
> An acknowledgement of inspiration: the line “But then that would get _neither_ of us _fucked_ ” is heavily influenced by a line in [Subtext](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186654) by the wonderful Suzie_Shooter where it’s Porthos thinking: "soft kisses and declarations were all very well, but it wasn't getting either of them fucked". I confess that I couldn’t resist the idea of Athos using such unAthosish language to mess with d’Artagnan. 😄


	9. Pillowed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A little talk in the afterglow._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Athos’s reference to him telling the tale of Aphrodite and Adonis is regarding [Chapter 7](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14189991/chapters/32868573) of [Nevertheless](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14189991), which story, incidentally, is where the others found out for certain about Athos and d’Artagnan. And Constance.

“Mmh?”

“Ah,” and a smile in the voice curled behind him. “You’re awake.”

“Iwazn?”

“Not so much.”

“Igiduzwo?”

A huff of amusement. “Though maybe we should wait before engaging in more structured debate…”

“Dzbassard.”

“Quite. Rest, d’Artagnan.”

“No’iz. No. M’awake. Talk t’me.”

“All right. What shall I say?”

“Um. Um. Dunno.”

An outright chuckle. D’Artagnan imagines his eyes sparkling in those beautiful creases and wants to see, but also has absolutely no desire whatsoever to move.

“More poetry maybe?”

“ _More po’tree!_ ” And d’Artagnan is himself amused and mortified together to find that he cannot control either the pitch or the volume of his voice.

“Maybe in French this time, though?”

“Yes…”

Athos mutters something about watered wine and tightens his arms about him. D’Artagnan squeezes his arms against his chest in return, and stretches against him, blinking rapidly and yawning on a snap of jaw – trying to bring himself back to something more like wakefulness, despite the indecent comfort of Athos’s arms.

Athos shifts against him, then loosens his grip to stroke his right hand over d’Artagnan’s chest in vague circles. He thinks it might not be entirely voluntary. Athos clears his throat, takes a breath and begins:

_Hide this one night thy crescent, kindly Moon;_ __  
_So shall Endymion faithful prove, and rest_ __  
_Loving and unawakened on thy breast;_ __  
_So shall no foul enchanter importune_ __  
_Thy quiet course; for now the night is boon,_ __  
_And through the friendly night unseen I fare,_ __  
_Who dread the face of foemen unaware,_ __  
_And watch of hostile spies in the bright noon._ __  
_Thou knowest, Moon, the bitter power of Love;_ __  
_’Tis told how shepherd Pan found ways to move,_ __  
_For little price, thy heart; and of your grace,_ __  
_Sweet stars, be kind to this not alien fire,_ __  
_Because on earth ye did not scorn desire,_ _  
_ _Bethink ye, now ye hold your heavenly place._

“Oh,” says d’Artagnan, when he’s finished.

“Mmh,” says Athos. He takes a deeper breath, releases it on something like a sigh. “That was the first one of his that came to mind – it seemed to follow well after the last one.”

“Who is it?”

“De Ronsard. He, er, he wrote a lot of love poetry.”

D’Artagnan hears something that could be a blush in Athos’s voice and squirms to turn in his arms, which tighten again so that he has to twist his neck to try to see him. Athos adjusts his grip so he can poke him in the ribs.

“Stay still, for Heaven’s sake!”

“Did you memorise many of his poems?”

“Some…” and somehow d’Artagnan can hear there a much younger Athos, pictures him careful and quiet in the library Pinon was bound to have maintained, dark head down, bowed over a book, eyes closed, lips moving silently, and love sings in him.

“Do you know any more?”

After a moment he says: “They tend to be a little… gloomy… or desperate, I suppose you’d say…” and pokes a laughing d’Artagnan in the ribs again.

“Of _course_ they are! _Oooh! Stop_ it!”

“ _You_ stop it!”

“Hah!” And they squirm together, happily.

“Behave!”

D’Artagnan makes a rude noise and slumps with dramatic force into Athos’s chest.

“Better.”

“Hmm.”

There is time, in their cuddled silence, to hear slowing, deepening breaths, the call of birds outside, the stir and clink of the house itself.

“Athos?” he asks after a while.

“Yes?” His voice sounds incredibly satisfied.

“What was that… hmm… was the Latin. Latin? Latin. Earlier.”

“Oh,” says Athos, “remember when I told you the story of Aphrodite and Adonis?” D’Artagnan looks a little blank, though that may just be part of the aftermath. “Walking back to the Palace with Constance after the, er, game with the others in the mess?”

“Mm? Oh. Oh, I remember the boar in the alley. And Constance. Mmh.”

“Yes, that was. She was very commanding.”

“Mmh.”

He clears his throat. “Anyway, there’s a story within the story – happens a lot in Metamorphoses. Aphrodite tells Adonis why wild beasts are dangerous. And why being ungrateful to goddesses is a bad idea.”

“Really?”

“Hmm,” and there’s a definite note of amusement. “Particularly: taking your latest conquest, courtesy of Aphrodite, to another goddess’s shrine and having loud and unrepentant coitus there instead of offering the proper thanks.”

“Ah.” He considers this for a moment, says, unguardedly: “Well, he always used to say ‘balance in all things’… Um…” trails off.

“Who?”

“Aramis.”

Their breathing, the creak of the bed, seem very loud.

“I didn’t dream that bit, did I?”

A heavy sigh. “No, I evoked our absent brother in a moment of… anxiety…”

“Athos…” and he turns determinedly, Athos letting him this time, so that he’s on his back but still nestled up to him.

“Yes?”

“I miss him too.”

“Of course you do.”

“It hasn’t felt right. I mean…” he hurries on, “it’s been good… as good as this –” his gesture takes in war and associated activities, “can be, but…”

Another sigh. “Incomplete. I know.”

“He misses him _so much_.”

Athos doesn’t say: “Still?” or “Really?” just: “Of course.”

“It’s like someone broke a piece off him.”

“D’Artagnan…” it’s too much. Of course.

He busses the side of his head against Athos’s shoulder. “Sorry.”

“Think nothing of it,” he says, a little heavily, then seems to think better of it, and plants a kiss on d’Artagnan’s temple.

“Um, one question, though…”

“Yes?” cautiously.

“Why did you, um; why were you anxious enough to evoke him?” He means: _why did you stop?_ and _did I do something wrong?_ and _are you okay?_

In the silence that follows he turns again, drapes his left arm gently about Athos’s chest, shuffles his right hand between them to lay it on Athos’s chest. A certain tension ebbs from his lover at this gesture, whose head is a little higher up the bed than his, his gaze somewhere distant.

He takes a deep breath. “It was… I’d… You seemed to me too far unmoored from, from, well, _wakeful reason_.”

“Hmm?”

Another heavy sigh. “It was like you were drunk… or… asleep, or… like you were a child. I. I couldn’t.”

“Drunk? But…”

“Blasted to pieces, don’t-know-your-own-name kind of drunk.”

“So exactly what you aimed for.”

A rueful sound. “Yes.” D’Artagnan deliberately draws himself back a little to look him in the face, which slants wryly but stays focused elsewhere. “A victim of my own success.”

“Does this mean we won’t ever…?” he tilts his head a little.

“Oh, no, I’m fairly sure there’s going to be more explicit constraint in our future. But I think I’ll make sure you’ve eaten food first. That we both have, for that matter.”

“That…” he says, slowly, “is a very good point.”

“The thing is,” says Athos, like someone pushing into pain, “I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to ride that high with you, feel you ripple beneath me, loose and singing with it, lose myself there somehow too.” And that would step too close to… to drinking hard… oh, love…

“But you did. Stop, that is. And then you… you didn’t. And I was _there_. Fuck, that was _good_ , Athos.”

“God, yes,” and his voice is heartfelt. His gaze finally drops to d’Artagnan’s, and he smiles, full-hearted.

Nothing else, it turns out, needs to be said after all.

A while later, they hear Porthos calling: “I don’t mean to interrupt, gents, but were you ever thinking of coming down?”

“Momentarily!” calls Athos back.

“Don’t eat all the bread!” shouts d’Artagnan.

“Better hurry up, then!”

“Bugger…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [Pierre de Ronsard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_de_Ronsard) was a famous and well-renowned poet of the 16th Century, who was very popular up until the latter half of the 17th Century. I figured that, what with him being prolific, popular, and before Athos’s time, combine that with how very fucking emo a lot of his work is, and Athos would be a Big Ol’ Fan.
> 
> Poetry was thought of differently in those days. In fact, up until relatively recent decades, people would still memorise other people’s poems and recite them to each other. Poets of previous generations were rock stars who gave sold-out reading tours. We can only _dream_ of such acclaim these days!
> 
>  _Anyway_ , you can find what I assume is a translation, but may have been originally written in English for all I know, of [To The Moon](https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-the-moon-10/), the poem picked by Athos, at PoemHunter.com, along with many more of his, in both English and French.


	10. Tackle

“Why are we out here again?”

“Fishing. Shh.”

His voice drops to a murmur. “Ah. Why?”

“Well, unless you want to spend the rest of our time here eating increasingly stale bread and hardtack, and the cheese might be fine, but who wants to eat cheese for days…?”

“I see your point.”

“So while d’Artagnan’s out setting snares, we’re fishing.”

“Right.” A pause. “Only: do you know how to fish?”

“As it happens, I do.”

“Oh. Right.”

“What, you thought–”

“Just… I–”

“Finding it difficult to imagine?”

“Well, I don’t know your life.”

“Damned right.”

They sit for a while, lapped all around by the sound of birds and insects, the murmur of the water itself, the shade cool by this brook.

“So why do we have to be quiet? Can fish hear?”

“Fucked if I know, Athos – was just always told to be quiet while fishing.”

“Well, I don’t want to question a master at his craft.”

“That’s right.”

Another pause. Athos stirs, draws breath, claps his mouth shut, lets it out through his nose.

“Go on.”

“Well. I was only going to say: thank you.”

“Eh?”

“This place. It’s… a gift.”

“Yeah, well.” Porthos keeps his eyes on the river, mouth shifting down-up, down, a familiar gesture of reticence. Athos says nothing, acknowledges his brother’s emotions with a quick upward nod when he finally looks over to catch his eye. Porthos sniffs, nods back.

After a long while of nothing much, Porthos murmurs: “Why don’t you just go fetch your book?”

“That hardly seems like good companionship.”

“What – you’re telling me that, if I started talking, you’d ignore me in favour of… what’s this one?”

“Dante.” Swapped with the chaplain for a small, decanted flask of the Good Brandy.

“Right. Him.” A pause. “Well?”

“You’re right, of course,” he sighs.

“Look, if you’re gonna keep me company, go fetch _something_ to occupy yourself. Clean your weapons, mend your doublet, whatever.”

“My doublet doesn’t need…” Porthos glowers at him. “Fine.” He stands. “Want me to fetch you anything?”

“Wouldn’t say no to some of that wine…”

Face neutral he nods. “Very well.”

By the time Athos returns, Porthos has settled himself so thoroughly into the trunk of the tree that he almost looks to be asleep, if you didn’t spot the way his eyes aren’t, in fact, entirely closed, and that he relaxes a significant notch when Athos hails him quietly, right hand returning to his lap.

“Anything?”

“One.” He holds his finger and thumb no great distance apart. “I threw it back.”

“Ten more of those and an onion, and we’d have a stew.”

“Which d’Artagnan would cook.”

“Naturally.”

“Did you bring the wine?”

“Hold on.” Porthos frowns. Athos’s voice sounds a little strained. He twists his neck and chokes, unsure whether to laugh, curse, or just shout, and still mindful of the fish.

“Athos…”

“Ye-es?”

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

Porthos huffs sharply through his nose. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to give yourself a haircut.”

“I am…”

“Well, there’s _that_ mystery finally solved, then.”

Athos twists a frown up at him. He has his towel around his shoulders, his hair gathered at the back of his neck in his fist, and is turning his other wrist this way and that as he snips off what emerges at the other end with the scissors from the medical kit.

“What?”

“You’re a fucking maniac, is what. Give ’em ’ere.”

“But…” it’s half-hearted, his gaze slipping to the rod.

“Tell you what – you hold this, and I’ll cut your hair, and you can save the pouting for the whelp, how about that?”

“The profession of law lost a master when you turned to soldiering.” He surrenders the implement and shuffles over, obediently, if gingerly, taking the improvised fishing gear from Porthos.

“Absolutely. Now sit down, and shut up.”

“What am I doing?”

“Holding the rod. Lightly, so you can feel it shift – you get me?” Athos nods. “If it wiggles, wiggle it back. _Gently_. If it starts _really_ wiggling, pull it up slow. See? So easy, even a noble could do it.”

“Ha. Ha.” He settles himself more securely, shuffling past an insistent tree root, shifting the weight of the rod so it’s free to move if the bait is bitten.

Porthos kneels up behind him, and, tutting only lightly, starts to chop at his hair, cursing the scissors under his breath.

“What’s wrong with them?”

“Well, the hinge is almost gone on them for a start, and they’re not great for cutting hair. They’re the wrong sort, obviously, but still.”

Athos frowns. “There are different sorts of scissors?”

The next mutter sounds remarkably like “Fuckin aristos…”

“I doubt d’Artagnan knows much about the different sorts of scissors,” he remarks mildly.

“I think he’d surprise the both of us.”

“He often does.”

There’s a huff that stirs sensation along the back of his neck and he flushes, knowing that Porthos is holding back an obvious tease. Strong, broad fingers touch the bones where his neck meet his skull, tilt it gently, and he obeys. It has been a long time, but some movements are bound in something more fundamental than thought, and he will always be a six-year-old boy getting his hair cut for the first time on occasions like these.

It has been a very long time.

He’d once suffered Aramis to cut his hair, two hours before an important parade, a vile mixture of hungover and still-drunk from the night before, and no-one listening when he told them that his hat would cover any imperfections of toilet.

Aramis, cheerfully oblivious, had trimmed and shaved his beard into something passing for elegant, threatening to have Porthos restrain him every time he twitched and grumbled. By the time he’d got around to his hair, he’d fallen into a semi-doze of involuntary obedience to the kind but firm tilts, scrapes, snips, and lifts.

“There,” he’d said, “good enough even for the Cardinal.”

Athos, from the dark, venomous depths of a real skull-splitter, had suggested in no uncertain terms an anatomically unlikely combination of the Cardinal, the scissors, and Porthos’s pumice stone until its owner had nearly choked with laughter before leading him over to and plunging his head into a bucket of cold water.

“Thank you,” he says now.

“I ain’t finished.” Porthos’s voice is preoccupied.

“Nevertheless.”

“Can’t have our Captain looking like a beggar when he returns.” A pause filled with the lap of water, the sigh of leaves. “This bowl for shaving water, then?”

“Yes.”

“Want me to do that as well?”

He thinks for a moment, tilts his head the other way as directed. “Yes, that would be kind, thank you.”

“It might not be all that warm by now.”

“Well, if _someone_ hadn’t insisted on going to town on my hair.”

“You could have said no.”

“And risk your displeasure…? Hardly.”

“Hah.”

A critical tooth-sucking sound and one more short snip later, and a broad hand is ruffling his hair. “Well, it ain’t a professional job, but it’ll do, I reckon.” He crawls around to look him over from the front. “Yeah, it’s even enough.”

“Better than it’s been for years, I’ll be bound.”

“How you ever enticed two such lookers as you’ve got now, never mind that Comtess, I’ll never know.”

“Superior sword skills,” he says, straight faced, and Porthos outright grins on a single chuff of laughter. It’s only then he realises how long it’s been since he’s seen that, free of any kind of tension, non-performative.

“Good to see you so relaxed,” he remarks, smiling lightly.

“Well,” says Porthos, “that’s what you want from a man holding a blade to your face, doubtless.”

“Good point. Also: what shall I do with this bit of wood?”

“You don’t want the lad hearing you admit that kind of ignorance.” Athos gives him a hooded look of sheer, repressive sarcasm and he grins again, a touch sly this time, but it fades to serious consideration. “Good question. Hold up.”

The solution ends up being the both of them kneeling up while Athos holds the stick and tries not to feel too ridiculous, for Porthos’s sake as much as his own, as his brother works around it, saying cheerfully that he’d best make it quick.

“Not least because we don’t want any more misunderstandings.”

Athos grunts in reply, the best he feels he can do under the circumstances. Porthos has trimmed back the length with the scissors, using short, careful snips along his top lip, and now appears to be making some serious inroads on his cheeks, using foam he’s worked up with Athos’s soap.

He frowns.

“Don’t worry, I’m not getting rid – just givin it some shape.”

“Mmh.”

Porthos is very close, careful hand along his jaw, tilting it up, and Athos feels the heat of him, wonders what this _would_ look like to a returning d’Artagnan, closes his eyes, _don’t think of a white dog_ , feeling Porthos’s breath on his face and neck, keeps his own as even as he can make it, though his pulse is becoming a tumbling thing as he doesn’t think of the clearing, doesn’t think of Porthos’s birthday, doesn’t think of him and d’Artagnan kissing, doesn’t think of anything, as hard as he can.

They haven’t talked of it. Never mentioned it. D’Artagnan’s allusion to it the previous night the only revisiting, and for God’s sake, man, you really don’t want to be thinking about last night.

His hand is shaking and he’s more vexed than he can say about that until he realises what’s going on.

He opens his eyes, reaches up, and taps Porthos on the shoulder.

“Eh?”

He leans, points down and past him. “It’s shaking. What do I do?” he hisses.

“Didja wiggle it?”

“I think so.”

“It still wigglin?”

“ _Yes_.”

Porthos twists away from him, peers across. “Try pulling it up slowly. Nice and easy… that’s it.” Like a small miracle, a silver body emerges, dancing desperately at the end of the line.

“Nice,” remarks Porthos. Swiftly and dispassionately, he unhooks and despatches it, its dance done, then looks around for somewhere to place the body.

“If we empty out the bowl, could we put it in there?”

“Yeah, in a bit.” He looks over at him, consideringly. “We’re nearly done. Best get on, though – don’t want you lopsided.”

“That we don’t.”

Porthos lays the fish under the tree and rinses his hands in the brook. Athos murmurs his appreciation and they continue. Some of the tension has left him now, and being able to lay down the rod helps. He broadens his stance a little, holds his hands clasped behind his back in a kind of parade rest, sends his gaze into the dappling canopy, breathes easier.

It turns out that Porthos is indeed nearly done with him. A few more scrapes to his muttered satisfaction, a few twists of the head and tilts of his own to view the result and he declares it “Good enough.”

Athos nods and murmurs his thanks as his brother moves away. Breathes out long and slow.

Porthos gestures “Help me find some bait?”

“Hmm? Oh. Surely. What are we looking for?”

“Wriggly things, for preference.”

“Let me rinse my face?”

“Of course.”

He shakes his towel out, feeling the inevitable prickle of small hairs darting down his neck past his collar, and rinses his face in the tepid water, wiping it on a hair-free corner of the towel. Mindful that fish may be even more averse to soap than they apparently are to speech, he empties it out much further inland, and returns to hand it to Porthos, who’s holding a triumphant palmful of wriggly things.

Porthos takes the bowl off him, tips the bait into his hand before he can react, and puts the fish in the bowl in the shade of the tree. He returns to find Athos with his writhing burden held as far from his body as dignity will allow, spare hand gripped about his wrist in what looks very like a stern effort to prevent himself shaking them off and into the grass.

“Thanks,” and he’s threading one onto his hook and casting out before settling back against the tree.

A strangled sound from Athos makes him twist his head. “What?”

“What,” through gritted teeth, “would you like me to do with these?”

“Ah,” he flaps his free hand, attention returning to the water, “just put ’em in something so they don’t run away.”

“I see.”

A moment later, his own mug lands next to him, followed by a wineskin. The mug contains grubs and worms. “Nice.”

“I’m going for a walk, then fetching my book. Do you need anything else?”

“I’m good, ta.”

“Very well.” And off he goes.

Porthos leans his head back against the trunk, closes his eyes, and lends his remaining senses to the river.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know so little about fishing. Apologies for any dreadful errors – please let me know of any so I can make reparations!
> 
> On the other hand, I did discover that scissors in the 17th Century often looked more like this than what we’re used to:


	11. Paradiso

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A languid afternoon._

“Hey.”

Porthos takes a deep, slow breath. “Hey.”

“Were you asleep?”

Slowly, smiling lightly, his eyes barely opening: “How dare you, sir!”

“Hah.” d’Artagnan flops down. “Well, if I’ve impugned your honour as a Musketeer, I apologise.”

“If you think my honour can be so cheaply bought…”

“How about with… this brace of coneys?”

Porthos chuckles, his eyes opening wider to take in the dangling pair, swinging by their necks from a broad, copper hand. “Yeah, that’ll do it, I reckon.”

“So no need to seek satisfaction from me.”

He cuts his eyes sideways at him. “No need for that, though if you’re offering…”

D’Artagnan’s eyes widen. “Er…”

He points, continues: “… he went thataway.”

“Haha.”

Porthos just smirks.

“Where?”

“For a walk, he said.”

“Fair enough. Caught many?”

“Eh.” He peers sideways, settles back against the trunk. “A few.” He sniffs. “You any good at gutting fish?”

D’Artagnan makes a so-so noise, seesaws his hand when Porthos looks over. “What were you going to do with them?”

“Cook ’em.”

“Right. You know what I mean.”

“Give ’em to you to cook.”

D’Artagnan’s mouth tucks sideways into wryness. “You want to take the coneys?”

Porthos grunts.

“Fine. I’ll get the oven going in a bit.”

“Anytime now, right?”

“Feel free to start without me,” offers d’Artagnan with an expansive gesture towards the house.

Porthos grunts and D’Artagnan smirks, stretches his legs out in front of him, propped backwards on his hands, rolls his shoulders and heaves a slow sigh.

“You really like it here.”

“Tell me you don’t.”

“Hmm. It’s a bit quiet, but I reckon I could get used to it.”

“We could blow some things up from time to time if that would help you feel more at home?”

Porthos smirks, then his expression sobers. “Yeah, no…” he says, slowly.

“I won’t miss that,” says d’Artagnan quietly.

“Hmm.”

“‘Hmm’?”

“Well, seems to me,” he says, before he can think better of it, “that you ain’t never come back home after war.”

“That I have not. You know that.”

“Well, hm. Well, it’s different.”

“Different?”

“Like: when you’ve been on the water a long time and then you get back on land, it seems to be wobbling.”

“The land?”

“Yeah. You’ve never…?”

“Can’t say I have. Never really been on water that long.”

“Ah. Damn. It’s a really good… what do you call them? A thing that’s like a thing only not… so you understand better…” He looks deeply frustrated.

“Metaphor?”

“Maybe. We’ll ask him later, yeah?”

“Okay.”

“Okay, well, I’ll have to think of a better… metaphor? You sure?”

“No.”

“Anyway, you get used to the noise and the dust and the fucking smell, and then you’re home and it’s quiet. And you’re still waiting for the next shout, the next gunshot, the next explosion, and every sound that’s close to it is, is _too much_ , coz you’re waitin’ for the thing to push you into action. And it’s more tiring, yeah? Coz you’re waiting for something that never comes, or it does, and it’s not what you thought. Me? I always try to take some time, relearn where I’m at before settlin’ in again. But some men… they never leave the battlefield. Have to keep going back or the quiet drives ’em mad. Or they bring it with ’em. They’re the worst, I reckon. Anyway…” He looks down.

“Athos.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s been to war before?”

“Yeah.” He wrinkles his nose. “Yeah, a bit.”

“A bit?”

“He missed a lot of the big ones, but he’s been in proper campaigns, yeah.” A pause. “Why?”

“Sometimes… He used to… Not so much now, but…”

He looks up, trailing off, catches Porthos eyeing him with a perilous kind of compassion before the older soldier flicks his gaze away.

“Do you know what I’m saying?”

Porthos keeps his gaze on the river. “I think so. He… goes away. And his eyes, like he’s looking ’round corners. Scared me rigid the first time. Thought someone was comin’ to kill us and he’d just heard it first.”

“How’d you bring him back?”

“Honestly?” Porthos laughs, a slightly sour, rueful chuff, peers over his shoulder then down at the ground. “You gotta remember we didn’t know each other too well at this point…”

“Go on…”

“I thumped ’im.”

D’Artagnan blinks. “And?”

Porthos shrugs. “Worked. He punched me back, well, tried to anyway, cursing his head off. Then he said ‘thank you’ and fell over.”

D’Artagnan raises an eyebrow. “He was drunk, I take it.”

Porthos shakes his head, mouth downturned. “Nah. Never seen him panic like that when he’s in his cups.”

“Mm.” D’Artagnan nods, tight-lipped.

“Only does it when things are nice and quiet, now I come to think of it. Or just generally relaxed and friendly. Fuck. First time he tried to go sober was the worst. Convinced he had spiders on him. Like: all over him. Told no-one he was quitting it, sweating like a priest in a brothel he was, shaking like a shitting dog–”

“Nice.”

“You not heard that one? Anyway, next thing we know, he’s stood up, drawn his dagger, is swiping at himself, roaring ‘Get them orf me, get them orf me!’”

“That’s a terrible impersonation.”

“I’d like to hear you do better.”

“Well…”

“ _Anyway_ , he’d’ve done hisself a mischief we weren’t there to look after him. Nearly fell into the fire as it was.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah.” Porthos sniffs, scratches his neck. “Well. S’no good on a sensitive mission if someone’s drawing attention to your camp by bawling about invisible fuckin’ spiders.”

“So?”

“We tied him up.” His eyes roll in recollection. “And gagged him.”

“Oh.”

Porthos decides that he doesn’t want to know why d’Artagnan is blushing, is more than willing to pretend that he’s not, in fact.

“We, er, someone spoke all gentle to him and he eased out of it in the end, but we actually had to give him some wine to tide him over. Weirdest thing.”

“Hmm.”

“You alright?”

“Hmm? Yeah. Just. Just thinking.”

“Dangerous habit.”

“Apparently so.” D’Artagnan’s tone manages to be both absent and dry, and Porthos peers at him, wrinkles his nose. “Well,” he continues, “you know what they say about soldiers and dangerous habits.”

“Yeah, we’re rife with ’em. Especially Musketeers.”

D’Artagnan smiles and lets his head loll back a little.

“You could just lie down, you know.”

“I might just do that. What with the lack of explosions and everything.” His latter words come out a little strained as he levers himself down onto his back.

“And the lack of stench.”

D’Artagnan cracks one eye to see Porthos grinning over his shoulder at him. “I’m counting nothing out – _you_ ’re still here, after all.”

“Gascon ponce.”

“Parisian fart-press.”

For a while there’s nothing but the slight breeze in the branches above them, the gentle lapping of the brook against the bank, the very occasional splash, creak, and satisfied _Ah_ of another fish landed (followed by the more unfortunate flap and thwack of its distress and demise).

“Six now?” murmurs d’Artagnan after the latest.

“Seven.”

“That’s enough, isn’t it?”

“Suppose.”

D’Artagnan starts humming, very faintly, _dan, dada dee, dada-deeda, dadi_ dun _-da; dan, dada dee, dada deeda, dadi-dah_ , over and over. Porthos smiles. After a while of this he calls over: “That got any words?”

“De cor, de boux celebrats, cantats toutis; touts dadada, dada, jour de natal…” he murmur-sings, barely louder.

“What the Hell?”

He sings it again, louder, this time with a _pam, pam-pam-pam, pam-pam-pam, pam-pam-pam_ counterpoint slapped out on his thigh.

“What _is_ that?”

“Just a song.”

Porthos sighs. “What’s it _mean_?”

“What, you’ve never heard good French before?”

“Hah, you mean borders cant.”

“I guess I do, if by cant you mean dialect.”

“ _Ooooh…_ ”

“Fuck off,” he offers, good-naturedly.

“Almost sounds Spanish.”

“Yeah, sometimes.”

“Tricky,” observes Porthos.

“Weeell…”

A pause. “You’d go back there? Home?”

D’Artagnan’s face scrunches. “Is it home? Really?”

Porthos grunts.

“Besides, I thought we were settling here, where there a-a-are,” he yawns, “fewer explosions.”

“True enough.”

“Also we’re what – two hundred leagues away from Lupiac?”

“I guess. Further than Paris, anyway.”

“Exa-a-actly…”

After a while, d’Artagnan picks up the thread of his humming again, the beat dropping in and out of time, putting Porthos in mind of a drunken dancer, and thence in mind of the wine in the wineskin and not in him. He remedies the situation.

Later still he says: “Would you?”

“Hmm, zwha?”

“Never mind.”

“No, would I what?”

“Stay here.”

“Oh, sure. S’good land. Worth a court marshall or two. Yeah, fuck it.”

“You’d really…?”

“Hmwha?”

“Never mind.”

The Gascon makes a series of incomprehensible noises and starts, very gently, to snore. Porthos stares out over the river and, once he notices, puts considerable effort into unclenching his fingers from his breeches.

“More than one kind of war,” he mutters.

*

“Ah, such industry,” he drawls, and d’Artagnan makes a comical set of marionette jerks from the ground to vaguely upright.

Porthos sniffs, grunts, barely shifts his head towards him. “Got seven fish. Pup got a couple of bunnies.”

“And both a wealth of flies.”

D’Artagnan frowns and curses, flapping them off his prize with belated fervour.

“It’ll be alright,” assures Porthos, yawning.

“To be sure,” agrees Athos, “no open wounds, for a start.”

He looks down to see d’Artagnan gaping up at him.

“What?”

“Oh!” says d’Artagnan.

“ _What?_ ”

He blinks. “It’s. Well, it’s a, er, a change of look. A _good_ one!” he stumbles to add.

“Thank you,” he responds, very drily, left palm taking a slow journey down the new smoothness of his cheek, and his gaze takes in Porthos as well.

“You’re welcome,” says the Parisian with a lazy smile.

“Interesting…” says d’Artagnan.

“Well…” says Porthos, slowly, face still half-turned to the water, “you see a brother struggling to do something by himself and you could help, seems to me you offer a hand. That’s comradely.”

Athos and d’Artagnan look hard at each other at this, Athos as blank-faced as d’Artagnan has ever seen him, eyes narrowing a little, then relaxing into a hooded state, with the tiniest hint of a tilt of lips in what looks a little like a somewhat ironic amusement.

“Good walk?” asks d’Artagnan, a little over-loud, but not beyond the likely clumsiness of a man still waking up.

A half-smile. “Good enough. Pretty woods. Nigh-on flat as a pancake, of course.” His hand rests casually on his sword hilt, and d’Artagnan’s heart has a brief, strange clench for the Comte de la Fère, strolling, unarmed, at his leisure through his grounds.

“Thought for sure you’d get a pigeon or the like, complete the set.” Porthos’s voice is strained with the act of creaking to his feet. Athos strides without thought to offer his arm. “Getting old,” remarks Porthos, with a nod of thanks and a quick grip before letting go. He bends for the bowl and whisks off a damp square of cloth – his unfurled bandana – to proffer the fish. “Voilà!”

Athos takes a step back, face creasing briefly before it drops back to blankness. “Let’s get those where they belong.”

“Right you are, Ca-comrade.”

“Easy…” He beckons d’Artagnan, who scoops up the coneys with a grin, and they all amble companionably to the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I am a major nerd, I wanted the song d’Artagnan was singing to be based on something real. Researching the folk music of Gascony proved a frustrating task – more effort than I was expecting to expend, in any case. And then this turned up – a piece from an album which is designed to be a musical meditation on the [Camino de Santiago, the network of pilgrim routes also known as the Way of St. James](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_de_Santiago). The musicians wanted to work with the music that would have been around at _roughly_ 1648, the end of the Thirty Years’ War (in which we find ourselves during [this series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1137809)), when the routes between France and Spain would have become open again (while acknowledging some anachronisms in the music chosen) and this was one of the pieces chosen for Languedoc and Gascony that seemed to fit the bill remarkably well:
> 
> “[De cor, de boux celebrats, cantats toutis](https://youtu.be/8uiic1__95A)”
> 
> (I intend to listen to the whole album soon, though it’s unlikely I’ll be tackling the Camino in person any time soon…)
> 
> If I’ve boobed and my language skills have let me down, leading me to assume a French-Spanish border dialect for this piece, please do set me straight.


	12. Replete

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the light fades…

“The word you’re after is ‘analogy’,” says Athos, hand curling over his chin, expression still – teaching mode.

D’Artagnan, gazing, rapt, is taken by how the mellow light of the long sunset graces and glosses his lover, his posture and expression that curious mix of practical and polite, withdrawn and commanding, warm and almost hesitant that is entirely Athos.

“Yeah?” asks Porthos. “What’s the difference, then?” He sounds curious but not intent on the knowledge, not like… not as _he_ would have been. _Mind you, next minute he would have been arguing with Athos, so…_

He doesn’t know why he’s missing Aramis so much, especially tonight. He thinks, perhaps, that this is the closest they’ve come in so very long to the kind of endless tavern nights at the culmination of an assignment or campaign, mellow with slightly too much drink and food, the fading chatter around them, the torchlight casting them into heroic moulds.

“–stly technical, I think–”

And sooner or later Aramis would be telling them some outrageous story – either something new, and usually a new adventure in love (and associated activities), or a requested favourite, with which they’d chime in at the relevant points.

“– so one’s made up and the other’s real?”

“Well, not r–”

And sooner or later Aramis would be getting up with a twinkle, either to pursue a prearranged liaison, or to follow up on an opening (“Now, now, gentlemen!”) he’d been working on through the evening (“ _You_ are a barb _ar_ ian, my friend…”).

“No, I get it, I just–”

And looking back he sees Aramis’s eyes sharp on him and how the length of him is – he’d thought – unobtrusively pressed against Athos’s, or how their eyes keep meeting and holding maybe a beat too long in laughter or recognition across a table.

“–ust understand that I’m no exp–”

His eyes, sharp and warm, and that ever-present smile playing across his lips, expression deep with something before he deliberately grins, surfacing and shielding.

“Well, who here is?”

And his heart aches, suddenly, for how little he might actually have known their more famously open brother.

“–actly important for day-to-d–”

He would never have guessed all of that about the Queen. And the Dauphin! No, best not even think about these things.

“–ou alrigh–?”

After all, there are far more present things to think about than Aramis’s secret relationships.

“D’Artagnan?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you well?”

“Are you with us?”

“I was, um, just thinking, drifting really.”

Athos casts a wry look at Porthos and says: “We’ve clearly indulged too much in our academic passion.”

“That’s a nice way of saying we lost him, intellectually speaking.”

“Hah,” retorts d’Artagnan, but it’s reflexive, with no actual heat. Porthos smirks at him, but d’Artagnan really wishes it was a happier smile.

Athos takes his hand and his attention. “Feeling sleepy?” he asks.

“What? No, really, I– Yes, er, yes I am.” Porthos rolls his eyes, shakes his head at this clumsy veer, but d’Artagnan is locked in Athos’s gaze.

“’Night then,” says Porthos meaningfully. They both turn identically soft, daft expressions to him and smile. He doesn’t really know what to do with what that calls in him, so just smiles back on another eyeroll and shake of his head.

He clears the dishes off the table, telling them he’ll deal with cleaning them and the other things used for the dinner as payback for the eating without the cooking. Athos retorts quite seriously that, as he provided nothing for the pot, that ought to be him. Porthos reminds him that he had prepared the fish while d’Artagnan had hunted for greens to supplement them, and Athos returns that Porthos jointed the coneys and followed d’Artagnan’s directions for casseroling them. Porthos counters that Athos had found the gooseberries they’d eaten for dessert, at which point d’Artagnan tows Athos away, exclaiming that if Porthos will soak them tonight, Athos can wash them tomorrow, dear _Mother in Heaven!_

Athos tows him back in so that he can collect some warm water in a jug they picked up three houses away, nods at Porthos, and allows himself to be shepherded away again.

They thump and creak up the stairs together, bright with smiles and, unbidden, d’Artagnan is six years old, hearing his parents mount the stairs together, the whisper and tiptoe of them warm as a hug.

He sighs happily then, as they enter their bedroom, he turns on the ball of his foot, takes the jug off him, places it carefully by the fireplace, and pushes Athos into the door, kissing him gently but insistently.

Athos kisses back and there’s a smile buried in his caresses. After a moment or two he pushes d’Artagnan gently away. “Please,” he says, “I would like to wash before bed tonight at least.”

“Oh, of course. Sorry.”

“Think nothing of it.”

He unpacks his wash gear from where he’s neatly stowed it and takes the jug over to the basin he’s already set aside and washes his face and uses a small cloth to rub over his teeth with every sign of resignation and discomfort.

“Do those work?”

He pauses, extracts his fingers from his mouth, says patiently: “Well, yes. I’ve left it altogether too long since I used it regularly; trying to get back into the habit.” He lifts a somewhat rueful smile at d’Artagnan and gets back to business. D’Artagnan watches his newly-trimmed hair shift with the rhythmic movements, then shakes himself into pulling out his own soap. Their towels are long-since dry, and he pulls Athos’s down, holds it ready over his arm to hand to him, servantly and smiling.

To his relief, Athos smiles lightly for the small joke and pulls it from him when he turns, dries his face and hands and runs his hands through his hair, seemingly for the pleasure of feeling its new length. He gestures d’Artagnan politely towards the basin. He nods, steps forward. Athos strokes a warm, gentle hand down his back, and he leans back, hearing a chuckle as he does so. An arm winds about his waist and he’s pushed forward bodily. “Get on with it.”

And that warm pressure stays as he makes his toilet, so naturally he lingers over it somewhat, trying not to be too obvious in bending forward or pressing back, but Athos presses a chuckling kiss to his hair, tightens his hold briefly, and he laughs, a little ruefully, back. Athos leans away, still holding him so that they lean together, joggles slightly, then his towel appears in front of him and he chuckles again, twists his head, says: “Thanks,” pats his face and neck dry.

“Done?”

“Done.” He turns in his arms, smiling. “Come to bed?”

“Hmm. I was going to say that…”

“Well then, it’s your turn next time.”

“Very good.”

Athos watches d’Artagnan’s eyes drop to his mouth, feels his lips part in anticipation, and then quirk as d’Artagnan tilts his head to kiss down his neck while his fingers start to loosen the ties of his shirt so he can dip, lick over his collarbone.

“Mmmh. Not sleepy then.”

“Not sleepy,” he agrees, lips questing to the other side. “In fact…”

Athos feels the smile spreading on him, has a moment of wonder for how much less foreign the sensation is now. “You have something in mind?”

“I do now.”

“Mmh.” D’Artagnan’s shirt is already loose, so he flirts fingertips up his ribs, feels and hears him wriggle and sigh.

Soon enough they’re bare-chested, kissing, slow and tender. D’Artagnan cups his jaw, makes a muffled sound, strokes down his cheek.

“Hmm?”

“I’d forgotten.”

Mildly concerned, he reaches up to stroke the other side roughly. “It looks all right?”

“It really does. Suits you. Elegant.”

He snorts lightly. “I’m not _elegant_.”

Silence. He looks up. D’Artagnan draws back a little, stares at him.

“What?”

“You’ve really no idea, have you?”

“D’Artagnan, I–”

“… and you won’t believe me if I tell you.”

“Hm.”

“Would you accept ‘dignified’?”

“Christ, really? Makes me sound like a… a…”

D’Artagnan’s face twists in several directions. “‘Distinguished’?”

He frowns. “Am I really so old?”

“No…” but his eyes linger on his chin.

Athos slants a wry look his way. “Just promise me you won’t let Porthos start calling me ‘Greybeard’.”

“I like them,” he states, a robust tone. “Shows you’ve lived. Besides,” he backs towards the bed so he can sit to remove his boots, “I don’t see you defending me against ‘Pup’.”

“Ah…” He toes his boots, balances to pull each one off. The sunset is not making its way directly into this morning-facing room, and the light is cool but clear. It reminds him of something, but he can’t quite grasp it. D’Artagnan is looking up at him, thumbs hooked into the front of his breeches. “Let me help you with that,” with a sly quirk of lips.

“Yes please.”

Naked, d’Artagnan sits again on the edge of the bed to lend slow fingers and lingering upward glances to the task of undressing Athos. As soon as he can, he leans in to kiss his hip, his thigh, working across to lick and kiss his sac as his breeches puddle at his ankles.

“Mmh.”

“ _Mmmh!_ ”

“Hold on,” he says, smiling, “let me get rid of these.” He steps out of his breeches, goes to kick them to one side then bends to pick them up, throws them to land on his boots. He couldn’t tell you why it’s important.

He looks back. “What?”

D’Artagnan shakes his head. “One of these days I’ll find a way to tell you properly how amazing you are, so that you hear it and understand.”

He frowns.

D’Artagnan waves that statement away and beckons him back.

“You had something in mind, I believe?”

“Yes, but now I’ve something else. Um.”

“‘Um’?” His head tilts. “Ah.” It goes back a little. “Something you’re not sure of…”

“Oh, no,” he says, rising slowly to his feet, “I’m sure, I just… oh. Well, yes, I’m not sure that you. That. Um.”

He reaches out and draws him close. “With the exception of causing you physical pain and anything involving piss or… well, anyway, I’m unlikely to refuse you.”

“You’ve thought about this.”

“Somewhat,” he concedes.

D’Artagnan takes a deep breath, then shakes off his own trepidation with a smile, leans in, lowers his head a little, murmurs: “I’d like to lick you. _There_.” His eyes flash up to his, somewhat through his lashes.

The little bugger.

“Hmm,” he says, wondering if d’Artagnan wants to be teased with a slow answer.

“Please.” He pulls his head up more. Apparently not. “Just try it?” Then his face crumples. “Sorry, no, that – I should be…”

“It’s all right,” he assures him. “I’m… I’m just adjusting to the idea.”

The truth is that he’s enjoyed it every time d’Artagnan’s done it, it’s just that it’s not his favourite thing to receive. But he also knows how much he himself enjoys giving it, and who is he to deny d’Artagnan potential pleasure?

He smiles. “Where do you want me?”

D’Artagnan grins hotly. “That’s always a dangerous question. But for now…” his smile fades a little, eyes sliding, “um…”

He steps in. “You have something particular in mind, but you feel nervous. Don’t. I can only say no, and then we try something else.”

“True. Okay, well,” huff, “I’d like to be beneath you. You remember when you were kneeling by my head this morning?”

He’s hardly likely to forget. He nods.

“Like that only… a few inches further.”

If he’s honest, it sounds a little elaborate, and he’s feeling the last day and a half strongly, without the benefit of as much sleep as d’Artagnan’s had. He had hoped, really, for something slow and supine; for the kind of sweet, sleepy tenderness they can’t afford in camp.

But d’Artagnan is looking so appealing – slightly embarrassed, eyebrows a tangle, and hands stroking in short bursts over his shoulder and hip – so he leans in, kisses him until his tension ebbs, until he heats between his hands and he rises against him, then takes him by the hand and pulls him to the bed.

Pillow lengthways under his head, D’Artagnan starts slow, thumbs circling, tongue leading his intentions, lightly toothed kisses heading up his thighs. He’s grateful to his lover for starting with something he knows he likes, although he’s glad he’s not biting deeper into the tense muscle – he has a feeling that might be a step beyond what he enjoys.

As d’Artagnan switches between his thighs, he realises that he’s been mistaken again, that this is not just d’Artagnan being kind, or even involuntarily manipulative, that is genuine enjoyment being wrung from his lover’s throat: those sounds of hunger, the muffled apology in the way he licks over a patch nipped a little too enthusiastically.

D’Artagnan’s nose edges his balls and he gives a quickly stifled moan which returns when d’Artagnan shuffles and lays his tongue on his sac. Oh. “Oh, that’s _nice_.” And it is – quite apart from the physical sensation itself, in the same way as being naked together is an indulgence, so is this particular act – the chance to focus elsewhere, just for the sake of doing it. He thinks of the sheer amount of time he’d lavished on d’Artagnan that morning, of how slow they’d been in Orléans the second night, how loud they’d been in that ridiculous shack in Haut Forez, fear-stung and weary though that particular mission had been.

He’s drifting a little when d’Artagnan’s tongue takes a long, slow journey from the front of his balls, up the ridge behind, and along his cleft to his tailbone. “Mmh.” And again; slow and encompassing, broad and soft. D’Artagnan’s hands encourage him to lower his weight a little, cup and part him a little, and the sensation returns – shockingly intimate, decadent, wet, carrying a freight of memories from when he’d been the person below. He thinks of d’Artagnan, thinks of Constance, has a shocking moment of missing her like a stab to the belly, cold and hard. And the next moment is distracted by the warmth of the tongue on him, the moans that d’Artagnan is producing, looks down to see that they’re both very aroused, feels undeniable pleasure spill through him from where d’Artagnan’s attentions are circling, drawing in, deepening. Delicately, experimentally, he leans his weight forward a little, feels his riding muscles respond.

D’Artagnan follows him with more of that impatient, hungry growling of this morning, clutching at his flesh and driving deeper. And, God have mercy, he lets him. He’s making tiny moans himself now, rocking very slightly over his tongue, hearing his movement reflected back in a partly incredulous sound of pure lust from his lover.

And then he hears, clear as anything, a moan from elsewhere inside the house. Porthos has gone to bed, it would appear, and is paying himself some attention. He thinks d’Artagnan is unlikely to have heard, and something swells like laughter in his throat but comes out more as an answering, bitten-off cry.

He can’t tell, he can’t tell – it’s all too foreign a sensation. Is d’Artagnan _in_ him already, swirling, oh God, the point of him curving, or is it still just a tenting pressure? Is this… is he…? And he’s rocking harder now, because. Because.

_Because it feels good._

Yes. God, yes. He doesn’t know, and that nags like an itch, but it’s, “Mmh, God,” but it’s fine. And he’s shocked to hear himself moan: “Mmh, more, _more_ …”

D’Artagnan groans, takes a breath and starts to push deeper, then pulls back, biting at his buttock. “Are you sure?” comes in a thick, slightly shaky voice beneath him.

He pauses. “No…”

“Okay.”

“But.” He clears his throat. “Please, a little. _Slowly_.”

“Of course.”

And he does, kissing his way back in again, keeping the strokes of his tongue slow and gentle, then increasing the pressure and focusing in narrower and narrower until…

“Mmmh!”

Oh, it _is_ nice, but he just can’t tell if it’s too much or not enough, and, as soon as he thinks this, he’s panting at what more might mean, where that goes, and he can see himself crying out to d’Artagnan, shouting “Shove your whole fucking hand in!” and it takes every fragment of his ragged control to stay where he is, say nothing, do nothing.

“Are you alright?”

His self-control clearly doesn’t extend as far as involuntary muscle movements in delicate places.

“Yes.”

“Athos…”

“I’m” fine, he’s going to say, screws his face up, says instead: “somewhat… that is… I…”

“‘Overwhelmed’?”

He slumps in defeat. “Yes.” It’s easier to say this. It’s true, but not quite in the way d’Artagnan means.

“That’s okay,” he says, gentle and cheerful, and Athos is trying not to think: _like someone humouring a lunatic_ , because that’s just not fair; certainly not fair to d’Artagnan. His lover pushes him a little: “Kneel up for a moment?” and he does, all on reflex, miserable, suddenly, feeling d’Artagnan wriggle out from under him, feeling the air in front of him shift, but seemingly unable to meet his eye.

Warm arms around him, and the scent he knows better than his own. “Let’s lie down, hm?”

And he does, feeling miserable and undeserving, craving punishment, craving comfort, knowing he has no right to ask it, knowing he’d need to explain, knowing this would mean saying aloud that he’s broken, he’s still broken, and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be fixed.

It’s unfair, so unfair for d’Artagnan, even as he can see him cheerfully pushing his broad, bronze shoulders under this weight, trying to lift it for him.

No-one can lift it for him.

“Shh,” says that warm, loving voice, “it’s okay.” It’s not. “I’m sorry.” You have nothing to be sorry for. “I pushed, but it’s okay.” How can it be? “Take your time to come back, if you need…” And he’s so startled by this that he looks up, right into his lover’s eye, feels his lover’s hand brush his hair back, feels his face retreat. “Just breathe, my love.”

Fresh air?

Fresh air.

D’Artagnan draws back a little further again, hand warm against him but letting his frantic body cool in what breeze comes through the window. He feels his heartbeat shift from gallop to canter; canter “Hush, my love,” to trot. Trot to. To. He sees horses lift forelegs in swift formation drill, feels the tilt and sway beneath him, clutches and clicks, chirrups, moving with him, moving him. Love and affection are the way to move a horse to your command, to…

_The groom should stroke or scratch the colt, so that he enjoys human company, and should take the young horse through crowds to accustom him to different sights and noises. If the colt is frightened, the groom should reassure him, rather than punish him, and teach the animal that there is nothing to fear._

He reaches over with his right hand, turning himself as he does so, and touches d’Artagnan’s chest with his fingertips. He receives a slow smile in return, the man turning onto his side and cocking his head, studying Athos’s expression from under sleepy-looking eyelids, then gently wriggling a little closer as the touch turns to a sweep, a stroke.

_The mouth should be cared for and made soft with the application of oil._

Athos, entranced, lifts a gentle thumb to run along that lower lip that he’s long sworn over and again to never get enough of. D’Artagnan’s breathing hitches a little, and he can see him holding back, resisting his usual engulfing of Athos, leaving himself open, not driving the pace. He shifts right into d’Artagnan’s space, nearly flush with his body; sharp hoofbeats tumble fast again under his chest, and he feels his jaw clench.

And d’Artagnan’s palm is soft against his face, lips whispering over his, all nonsense and hushes. _If the colt is frightened, the groom should reassure him, rather than punish him, and teach the animal that there is nothing to fear._

But he’s not a colt, he should be… He should… He shakes his head a little. What does Xenophon say about picking an older horse?

_Check his teeth_. Hmm… He shifts his head sideways a little, mouthing over the side of d’Artagnan’s forefinger. _The horse should then be bridled, to make sure he accepts the bit_. He curls his tongue over it and its companion to persuade them into his mouth. The sigh that d’Artagnan lets out loosens and tightens something in him. He laps at them, slow at first, feels him stir against him, start to thicken again in earnest, feels himself quicken at the sensation.

A lifetime of riding horses, from his first pony to his current charger, and all of them considered an extension of himself, better, cared for scrupulously even during the times he could barely manage to feed himself, let alone clean himself, and yet his horse’s mane would be free of tangles, hooves stone-free, filling his glossy belly from a full bin, with his master sprawled and soused, straw-mired and dusty, curled and muttering into a corner until discovered in the morning, sour with memories and horseshit, and still steeped in whatever vintage had dragged him to this pass.

D’Artagnan pulls his fingers from his mouth slowly, gently, and, as he chases them, cups his jaw and leans to him.

Ah, dear God, that mouth. Again. Again. And he kisses and kisses, deepening with every pass until they’re both panting. But he’s remembering now, remembering that he can tighten his mind’s limbs on the careering beast, lean into the curves, not only bring it under his control, but ride the wildness, stay atop; even – with good balance – enjoy the speed sometimes.

_He should be mounted, to assess if he will stand still for the rider. He should then be ridden away from the stable, to see if he is willing to leave other horses._

He can feel d’Artagnan starting to fall back, from habit if nothing else, and he reacts virtually without thought to roll and pull him on top, revelling in his pressure, his heat. D’Artagnan, face dropping open with lust, glossy hair falling in swathes around him, checks mutely with rising eyebrows, and he nods minutely, pulling him closer, and d’Artagnan surrenders, hips rolling against him, groan pulled from his throat, and Athos’s breath is coming hard under his weight, and it’s enough, it answers what he needs without… don’t think, just lean into the curves, tug at his buttocks to summon harder, faster thrusts, fuck, _fuck!_

His right hand goes to d’Artagnan’s face, and his thumb is seized upon, sucked into that wet, plush heat, nothing has changed, nothing has changed, and he shifts so that d’Artagnan is licking and sucking with a groan at his fingers, his palm, everything, this clearly being _his_ great hunger, even after this morning, last night, and Athos is pushing his wet hand between them, d’Artagnan rearing up, letting him grip them together, stroke more moans from them, fuck, can’t last, oh God, God, yes.

D’Artagnan’s head goes right back, a ragged sound coming from him, and Athos, on an instinct he couldn’t name if you held a pistol on him, holds his left forearm towards him and his lover latches onto it, sucking, licking and “Ah, _Christ!_ ” biting, and he loses control first, climaxing so hard he thinks he might faint from it, d’Artagnan following a hectic couple of beats later, teeth clenching harder for a moment so that he has to strangle a yelp of surprise and pain, whole body still ringing with pleasure, d’Artagnan panting and swearing, and apologising.

“No, no, no. Mmh. No, love. See? Not bleeding.”

“Mmh. Hah. Right.”

“Shhh, relax, come on.”

“Hey, I should be saying…”

“We can take it in turns. Come on.”

D’Artagnan chuckles concession then slumps. “God help me – I can’t move.” He deliberately puddles himself over Athos, who makes wheezing sounds only partially feigned and pushes at his floppy limbs.

“Get off!”

D’Artagnan makes a comical sound, akin to a small child, whining “But _why?_ ” and lifting his head to smirk at Athos, share that it’s mostly show.

“Because,” he says, with slow, mock patience, “we’d get glued together as we dry out, and _you_ try explaining that to Porthos.”

He yelps with laughter, and pushes himself up good-naturedly, looking down with a grin. They both of them sober in the same, slow instance, unable to unlock gazes.

“I love you,” says Athos, startling them both.

“And I you. God save us both,” he adds, dips his head for a slow, sweet kiss.

Washcloths deployed, they settle into each other’s arms.

After a while, d’Artagnan says: “Can you hear–?”

“No.” Clearly.

“Like a squeaking noise…”

“No.” A riot of quiet, rhythmic thumps accompany it.

“Ah…”

“Yes.”

“Goodnight, Athos.”

“Goodnight. Sleep well.”

“Mmh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It’s, er, it’s been a while. Again. Bloody Life™, eh? 😕
> 
> Anyway, blame theredwagon, who wrote to me and reminded me of one of the main reasons I do this. 😏 So have an update.
> 
> Who’s Xenophon? He was an Athenian historian and soldier, famous – among other things – for writing a book called [On Horsemanship (Περὶ ἱππικῆς, peri hippikēs)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Horsemanship). I couldn’t tell you now which series of Google bounces got me there, but, once I was, I was taken by how kindly he spoke of how to treat horses. Athos often seems to need a little extra help being kind to himself. The quotes in italics in the chapter are taken from the Wikipedia entry.


	13. Sonnez les Matines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dormez-vous?

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Good morning.”

“Morning.”

“Any bread left?”

“No.”

“Ah. Cold rabbit?”

“Cold rabbit.”

“We could…” a stretching yawn, “we could heat it up?”

Porthos thunks down into a seat. “Next time, I’m bringing a flitch of bacon, that’ll see us.”

D’Artagnan disappears into the windowless, stone-walled pantry that serves as cold storage. Athos leans on the table. “Next time?”

“Well, you know. If we get the chance. Hell, might be moving out again tomorrow, all we know.”

“You know I’d tell you…”

“I know.” He hears a slow, deep sigh, looks around cautiously, but Porthos is just yawning, stretching, scratching his belly under his loose shirt.

“Sleep well?” He nearly curses himself for asking.

Porthos eyes him sideways a little, but leans back on a roll of shoulders and says: “Yeah, pretty much. Be sorry to say goodbye to a mattress, though.”

Athos finds himself making a small but heartfelt groan, eyebrows up in the middle. Porthos quirks a look up at him. “It would appear that I’ve become a hedonist overnight.”

“That could be problematic on the field.”

“I’m inclined to blame you.”

“Next time I’ll scout out an abandoned village with all conveniences but the beds, is it?”

“I would appreciate that.”

D’Artagnan wanders back into the kitchen, humming, prodding the contents of a dish.

“When do you want to get back by?”

D’Artagnan raises it to his nose, makes an _it’ll do_ face and strolls towards the range.

“Hmm? Oh, never?” He makes a small, rueful laugh, eyes Porthos wryly.

“None of us can make bread,” calls back d’Artagnan.

“He’s got a point.”

“Back to soldiering it is, then.”

Porthos makes a face at him, then brightens. “I can make oatcakes.”

“We don’t have the ingredients.” D’Artagnan feeds the fire and dusts off his hands.

“That common sense of yours is going to get you into trouble one of these days, mate.”

“Good job I’ve got my reckless daring to fall back on.”

“Exactly.”

A few clanks and scratches later and he’s back with them. He has, of course, managed to get soot on his brow and jawline. Athos’s lips twitch at the sight. They settle into one of those silent, gazing whiles that Porthos now effortlessly sees as them kissing each other, and sometimes, when he’s a little unready, like now, it pulls not a smile from him but a tightening somewhere deep inside, like a fist – hot and unhappy.

He sniffs, scrubs his face, runs his fingers up through his hair, shifts on his chair, winces, shifts back a little, covering the wince with another yawn, not having to dig too deep for it.

He sniffs. “Any, er, any plans for the morning?”

“Hmm? Oh, not really. Maybe write a couple of letters.”

D’Artagnan clears his throat.

Porthos finds himself frowning. “Really?”

“Not official ones.”

“Oh, well that’s all right then, isn’t it?”

Athos’s face does something complex, and for a moment Porthos feels like a few decades have peeled off the three-quarter profile in front of him. He sends _what?_ his way, sees it deepen.

Athos scrubs at the back of his neck, stops himself. “I quite like writing letters.”

“Never said you didn’t. Never said there was aught wrong with that either.”

“Well.”

D’Artagnan clears his throat again, louder.

“Guessing you forgot until you had to write so many,” says Porthos, ignoring this.

“Hmm,” he concedes.

“And I’m guessing,” says d’Artagnan, “that you forgot that you were due to wash last night’s dishes this morning.”

“Bugger,” he agrees, and d’Artagnan laughs, turning back towards the hearth. Athos gives one of his sidelong smiles with a roll of eyes to Porthos, who smirks back. He idly starts to roll his sleeves up in preparation, and Porthos has an casual thought to spare for how, even here, in this heat, he’d tied his cuffs. The next moment he feels a jolt to his stomach, seeing the livid, unmistakable mark standing out against the pale skin.

He blinks his confused concern away rapidly on a turn of the head, a scratch at his neck. Athos strolls, apparently oblivious, over to the soaking dishes, turning the other sleeve up as he does so, calling some josh or other to his, to. To d’Artagnan. To–

Shit. They look around as his chair scrapes heavily back and he nods vaguely to them, already in motion towards the stairs, thinks about saying “Might as well start packing…” and claps his mouth shut on it.

Fuck it.

He sits on the edge of his bed for a long moment, staring at the wall, staring down at his lap, then his own fingers, then the wall again.

Right now he’s no idea if he wants a wank, a nap, a drink, a walk, or what, only that he’s hungry, and he curses himself for a fool who didn’t bring more bread with them, then chastises himself for that, for couldn’t the others have done the same? And then he just sits, closes his eyes, wishes for a moment to be the kind of man who carries a favourite book with him to lose himself in until d’Artagnan calls him for breakfast. He hears Athos calling on his way out at a strolling pace to the brook, presumably to scrub out everything with sand, make it sweet in the sunshine, remembers telling him to do something to keep his hands occupied, for Christ’s sake, and smiles, finally, gathers the right things from his pack and makes his way downstairs with whetstone, oil, needle, and thread.

There’s a slow morning waiting with his brothers. And whatever happens next, it can’t hurt to face it with a sharper sword and stronger seams.

*

“So, writing, then.”

Athos swallows his mouthful. “Writing. Shortly.”

“Are you going to write to Constance?”

He smiles, lightly. “It had crossed my mind.”

He smiles back, feels it drop a notch a moment later. “Could I borrow some paper when you’re done?”

“Pen and ink too, or were you gonna do it in charcoal?” Porthos scrawls a fingertip in midair, eyes crossed and tongue tip sticking out. “Or mud?”

D’Artagnan lobs a mushroom at him. He catches it neatly and pops it into his mouth, chuckling, eyes sparkling in the dancing sunlight.

“Damn.”

“Never throw what you can’t afford to lose,” but Athos smiles as he pronounces this, sly and sweet together.

D’Artagnan feels that familiar melting sensation in his chest at this, wonders if it’ll ever stop doing that, or if he’ll grow old, coming to the end of his days still feeling like someone’s pouring warm honey under his ribs at the sight.

Porthos slumps a little, silent over his food again, and d’Artagnan buries his blushes in the casserole.

Athos blinks thoughtfully. “I think I’ll leave you gentlemen to enjoy the fresh air. No-one wants the kitchen table, particularly, do they?”

They shake their heads and grunt. He rises, nods, places his bowl and utensils in the vessel originally designated for his stand-up bathing on the first day.

“Here,” calls Porthos as he reaches the door, “have you decided when you want to leave yet?”

He turns, hand on the frame. “I told you before.” A pause. “But since that’s unlikely, let’s aim to get back before sunset. All right?” Another nod, and he disappears.

“I met this philosopher once,” ventures d’Artagnan after a while.

“Oh aye?”

“I don’t pretend to understand all of what he said, but it was something along the lines of how, when we die, we come back and live life again, as different people, or different things, I think.”

Porthos frowns. “So I could come back as you?”

“Er. Not sure. Maybe you’d come back as your grandson, or something.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah. Anyway, apparently, the people who believe this say that you keep coming back until you get it right.”

“Right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, like making different choices, sort of thing? And then you get to Heaven?”

“Exactly that. Probably.”

“As my grandson.”

“Or a cat.”

“A cat.”

“I think so.”

“Why a cat?”

“I think you come back as animals if you’ve messed up badly this time around.”

“Who decides?”

“Hmm?”

“Who’s making the decision that you’ve been bad enough to be an animal?”

“God, I suppose.”

“All right.” Portho puts down his bowl, leans, and pulls out his main gauche from his belt, which sits on the ground next to him. Sitting tailor-fashion, he pulls out his cleaning rags, whetstone, and oil, and begins to see to his weapon. After a stroking while, he says: “And why did you bring this up?”

“Well, it occurs to me – we could have done something different with our leave.”

“Gone to Paris on a bunch of fast horses, for example.”

“For example.”

“Or stayed at camp.”

“Yeah.”

“Right. And?”

“And I think we did it right this time.”

“Do you?” He looks up, Porthos looks… maybe amused? He’s doing that up-down smile, still looking down at his blade, grinding softly in spirals over the stone.

“Yeah.”

“Well then,” says Porthos. “Good.”

“Yeah.” He gets up, shifts his and Porthos’s bowls and utensils to the washing bowl, goes to wash them properly.

“Nah,” he says, and he’s not quite smiling, not yet. “You cooked again. That’s on me or him.”

“Well, give me something to do, then.”

“You ain’t got mending of your own?”

He scrunches his face, rolls his eyes in recollection, shakes his head. “No – it’s all in good nick.”

“Tch. That’s no way for a well-brought-up Gascon lad to talk. _Good nick_.”

“I blame you.”

“Everyone does.”

“I could clean my gun, I suppose.”

“Again? Thought you’d been doing plenty enough of that these last few days…” He leers over the length of the blade, held edge-up and gently tilting to the light to tease out any flaws.

“Haha.” A pause, while he considers and rejects _No more than you_. “Mending? I could do that for you, if you wanted.”

“Yeah, all right.” He throws his mailed doublet over, then his mending kit in its leather case. D’Artagnan sits back down and starts methodically searching out the weaknesses in the garment.

After a while, Porthos says: “Doesn’t sound too bad, anyway.”

He looks up. “Hmm?”

His eyes are on the blade, circling it over the stone again. “Coming back as a cat if you’ve fucked up? Nah, sounds pretty good to me – all you have to do is sleep, eat, shag, sleep–”

“Fight…”

“Point being?”

“Fair enough. Wouldn’t fancy eating rats, though.”

“Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it, is my advice. Mind, you wouldn’t know any better, if you were a cat.”

“Or a dog.”

“That too.”

He looks up, smiles directly at Porthos until his brother looks up and meets his eyes, smiles back, then nods his way back to his work.

*

“There you go.”

“Very nice,” he says approvingly. “I should send my own letter.”

“Hmm?”

“To thank Constance.”

“Hah.”

Porthos looks up on a smile, then frowns and catches his arm. “What’s this?”

“Er…?”

“Around your wrist.”

“Um.”

“You want to get some leather guards when we get back.”

“Eh?”

“If your armour is rubbi… Oh.” He drops his arm.

“Um. Yeah.”

“Never fucking tell me.”

“What if you ask?” He’s genuinely curious.

He sniffs. “Since I reckon at least one of us would be drunk as fuck, or on his deathbed, I’ll leave that up to you, mate.”

“Fair enough.” He twists his face a little. “Were you serious about that letter?”

Porthos twists his in turn, still nowhere near meeting his eyes. “Only if there’s time, like.”

“’Course.”

“And paper.”

“And ink…?”

“Nah, I was going to go the charcoal route, myself.” He finally looks up and smiles at him.

He smirks back. “Naturally.” He pokes a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll go see if I can steal–”

“Fairly sure he’ll kiss you for the asking,” he remarks, mildly.

D’Artagnan sticks his tongue out at him and strides off.

“Don’t forget to get packing!”

D’Artagnan tosses a backwards salute his way.

*

“I’m just saying it’s a little weird, that’s all.”

Athos frowns, honestly troubled. “Why?”

“‘Why?’?”

“You’ve never. I mean, before, you’ve always. It’s. Look–”

“I’m looking…”

He sighs, helplessly. “It feels strange to me to tell you. Before her.”

“Tell me what?”

“What I’ve written.”

“Because it’s only for her.”

“It’s addressed to her.”

“And encoded.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because. Because I should.”

Athos’s eyebrows rise at this, his patience starting to ebb a little. He frowns. “What’s wrong, d’Artagnan?”

“Nothing! I just. _Nothing_.”

Athos watches him, silent, still.

“God-damnit!” He flings away. He rounds back, points a finger at the table, flings away again.

“You miss her,” says Athos eventually, to the deep-breathing hunch of his lover’s back.

“Of course I fucking miss her!”

“Then…”

“Because I stayed here, didn’t I? With you. With.” His breathing is coming heavier now, ragged. “With you.” Quieter.

Athos blinks hard, resists the urge to sigh, keeps his breaths slow and even. “And you feel guilty?”

“What the fuck do _you_ think, Athos?”

“I’m… I’m sorry.” He feels appalling, like the content, the… _happiness_ constructed over the course of the last few days is crumbling, falling, never to be seen again, cutting him along the way, letting the cold back in.

“Why…” d’Artagnan turns, face clenched, then the rage drops off him into something else. “Oh, Athos, no. No. That’s not. _Shit!_ ”

“Everything all right?”

“Fine, thank you,” Athos finds himself saying, on reflex.

Porthos raises an eyebrow, looks around the room, eyes narrowing at the end of his brief search. “Right.”

“Sorry,” says d’Artagnan, turning to face him.

“No point in sorry, is there,” says Porthos, decelerating as he does so, “unless you… regret something…” And he looks, for a moment, worse than Athos feels. He feels his hand twitching to reach out towards him, for once lets it, rather than snapping it behind his back.

“It’s not…” tries d’Artagnan. “I don’t… I’m just– Coming here, instead of…” he tails off, miserably.

Porthos takes a slow breath, and Athos sees him _not_ clenching his fists. “Seems to me, someone was talking about how they’d done it right, philosophically speaking.”

D’Artagnan wilts. Then just sits where he’s standing, cut strings, folded into a heap of young Musketeer. Athos and Porthos stand, frozen for a moment, then catch each other’s eyes, nod, and step in to crouch by him.

Athos can’t help but be powerfully reminded of the time he comforted his lover after Constance and he had broken, shortly after Bonacieux’s death. D’Artagnan had responded to his grief and guilt in a similarly hot-headed fashion, his attitude collapsing when he could finally be persuaded to speak out about his true feelings. For himself, it’s like walking through somewhere he’d seen in the sunlight, only to find it crumbling in the dark, and then lighting a torch to find, in fact, that it was only the paint and paper that were flaking, the bones of it solid. Hopelessly wrong-footed, he finds himself looking at Porthos, who mirrors his confusion and affection for a long moment before reaching, but not quite connecting, to touch d’Artagnan’s shoulder.

Porthos stares at Athos. _He’s_ your _fucking lover!_ and then worries that it’s him blundering in here at all that’s fucked up any resolution they could have reached. Bollocks… And not least, underlying it all, is the guilt that, instead of this being a treat, he’s dragged them here because _he_ wanted to not be alone.

Yeah, that’s really worked out well.

Athos, in a cascade of decision, places the flat of his own hand between d’Artagnan’s shoulderblades, rubbing slow circles, and nods to Porthos, who starts to withdraw, eyes shuttering. He shakes his head minutely, reaches, and pulls Porthos’s hand to d’Artagnan’s shoulder. D’Artagnan looks up at this and, before anyone knows what is going on, reaches out himself to wind his arms around Porthos’s torso.

Porthos sinks instantly, leaning in, thinking _safest arms in the garrison_ , and feels his eyes prick. This is fucking ridiculous. The next second he’s clenching his jaw hard against the muddled thought of making it up to d’Artagnan for being angry, softening it with kisses, which goes through, leaving him the next moment on a sigh. “You’re all right, pup.”

D’Artagnan mumbles into his shoulder and he frowns over his head at Athos, who’s one big frown-and-shrug himself. That same dart goes through him again, this time of kissing _his_ confusion and frustration away, and he realises with a cold stab that sticks that he is fucked, utterly _fucked_ , and the polite _concern_ that’s blooming all warm over Athos’s face is too much, it really is. He ducks it with a scowl, pulling back and peering down at d’Artagnan. “What’s that?”

“Not a pup.”

“Nah, near a full-grown hound now, aintcha?”

D’Artagnan pushes at him theatrically, good humour starting to peek through again. He responds by ruffling his hair, beaming genuine pleasure in his company at him, not even needing to try, and by God that’s a relief to feel.

He looks over to Athos, who nods a solemn _thank you_ , sea-eyes lit with both sadness and real gratitude. He shakes his head before he can stop himself, shrugs on a smile, sees it reflected dimly.

“Come on, young Master d’Art,” he says, standing to a crouch, cupped hand out in front of him. “Let’s have ya.”

“Fine. Yes.” He grasps his hand and rises. “So–”

“I swear, if you say ‘sorry’, I’ll kick your arse from here to Nantes, which is a sight further than Le Havre, and more hills on the way.”

Athos snorts at that, and it feels, as ever, like a victory. D’Artagnan pulls a brilliantly lopsided face at him, and he crosses his eyes in response, then gets ballistically hugged, breath going out in an _oofff!_

“What was that for?” he asks, gruffly.

“You. This whole thing. Thank you. _Seriously_.”

“Nah,” he says. “Would have had to carry the bath myself otherwise, innit?”

“Hah.” He turns to Athos. “Since apparently I can’t say sorry, will you accept thanks as well?”

Athos rolls his eyes and steps forward. D’Artagnan melts into his arms like he was made to be there. Porthos closes his eyes for a long blink, startling open when he’s hooked into the huddle by a gangly arm. He breathes in deep, lets it out slow and careful to not sound like a sigh, though he feels like he’s filling up, like water after drought, squeezes them both just a little tighter on that thought.

After a long moment, everyone starts to stir, and he drops a kiss on each of their bowed heads, without even thinking about it, stepping back on the same breath.

“I’ll, er,” he points a thumb at the stairs, “go pack. Long old walk.”

Athos sags a little, then is so straight the next moment you could convince yourself it was a trick of the light. He nods, and Porthos leaves.

He takes a deep breath himself. “Still want to write that letter?” he asks, softly.

“Yes,” says d’Artagnan. “Please.” He scratches his neck. “Though I’m damned if I know how to tell her everything.”

Athos shrugs. “Perhaps you could start by thanking her for her Yuletide gift, telling her that I put it to good use on your – or her – behalf.” A slow grin blossoms on d’Artagnan’s face. “Maybe venture that I apprised you of my intentions in another tongue, helping you to learn your place… no, too much, er, offered succour in a new tongue maybe?”

“I suspect that’s even more too much.”

“Madame will suffer from a surfeit unless we’re careful.”

“I could listen to you talk all day.”

“We’ll have to put that to the test sometime.”

“In the meantime…” he draws up a chair, sits, beckons across the table, and Athos slides over writing materials. He dips, considers. “‘Dearest Constance…’”

*

“All set?”

Athos sighs. “Yes.”

“And when do you become the Captain again?” Porthos sounds sincere, neutral.

Athos points. “About two miles in that direction, or thereabouts.

“Make it five,” suggests Porthos.

“Five what?” D’Artagnan straggles into the doorway, swaying a little under his pack as he rounds the jamb.

“Miles.”

“Of what.”

“Non-Captaininess.”

“Oh. Fair enough. Why not ten?”

“Good point,” muses Porthos, hand to chin.

“Five miles,” says Athos, deadpan, “unless there’s an emergency. And no dawdling to draw it out.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Furthest thing from my mind.”

“Well then, gentlemen. Shall we?”

“Forgetting something, aren’t you?”

He squints up at Porthos. “What?”

He nods, face serious. “Gotta say farewell. Properly.”

“Ah.” He turns to d’Artagnan, whose face is soft and open, held back a hairsbreadth from nakedly hopeful.

“I’ll just go check the brook,” says Porthos, face set in that direction. “See we didn’t leave anything.”

No-one reminds him that Athos already checked after d’Artagnan checked, and that he made shift to return every vessel to its original home before Porthos bodily dragged him back to the base house.

Now he rounds the corner, whistling a determined air. D’Artagnan and Athos eye each other.

“Get that pack off,” says d’Artagnan, clearly keen to make the most of the five miles.

Athos eyes him sardonically, right up until the point where his lover bundles him to the open door as soon as his pack hits the ground, hands on each cheek, kissing like life itself depended on it.

Athos shifts them sideways from an inconvenient door stud using a jolt of his hips then, unable to resist the moan this summons, twirling them so that he is pressing d’Artagnan into the door, which creaks briefly in protest.

They break for air, gasping, red-faced, hands on each other’s hips, in each other’s hair.

“Fuck,” d’Artagnan’s chest is heaving, his eyes dark as Athos has ever seen them by day.

“I doubt Porthos can deliberately dawdle _that_ long.”

They smirk at each other fondly, then Athos sighs, steps back. “Best if we don’t linger,” and does his best to dodge the hurt in d’Artagnan’s eyes. He reaches down for his pack and is stopped by a hand to his chest. Straightening, dismayed, he returns the gesture so that they can gaze, build each other’s strength in this traditional pose _that you forgot_ (shut up).

Nodding, d’Artagnan leans in to prop his forehead against Athos’s for a long moment as their eyes slip shut and then, only then, moves away, sliding from the door and from beneath his touch. His unabashed smile as he swings his pack up onto his shoulders does a lot to restore Athos’s equilibrium. He steps in close to fuss one strap away from the pommel of his sword, so that d’Artagnan can settle it properly on his back, before bending for his own.

As if on a signal, Porthos comes, still whistling, and Athos recognises it for an allemande which has him, for no reason he can yet name, skulking outside a London dockyard tavern. They nod to each other and Athos closes the door, testing the latch. They can do nothing to prevent further human incursions, but at least the place will stay a little cleaner with all doors and windows properly…

Porthos grabs him as he makes to check the back. “We closed all the windows twice, remember?”

“Thank you.”

“We good?”

“Yes.” He takes a look around them, tries not to sigh for the scents of green, the sounds of birdsong that owe nothing to crow call. “Let’s go, gentlemen.” He claps a hand on each of their shoulders and they stride on, managing to keep their gazes set ahead.

“What was that tune you were whistling?” asks d’Artagnan.

“Funny story,” says Porthos, “but I learned it in England…”

The house and grounds settle into stillness again, and the brook murmurs on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long delay, for which I apologise. My body has been kicking my arse. When I try to point out that it’s just _kicking itself_ , it responds by kicking even harder. Ugh. Tiring. Distracting. Anyway, we’re done with this segment now, and will be heading back to Paris shortly to spend time with some unsavoury characters.


End file.
